... in order to get treatment, as shown in Moore's film.
I wasn't intending to "immigrant-bash" (at least, not the variant that people in the States tell me is in vogue there). But here are some stats which suggest that the Michigan woman interviewed wasn't alone. (Seriously -- as a Canadian taxpayer, I don't begrudge desperate Americans who are sick and frightened -- I was being tongue-in-cheek with my comment. But as Moore pointed out, Canadians do grumble, and I would be dishonest if I said that nobody mentioned the fraud aspect in casual conversation ... the country whose name surfaces most often is the USA.)
I recall that in Ontario, they reissued health cards twice within a decade or so, ostensibly because of concerns about this kind of thing.
"In 1987, the provincial auditor criticized the health ministry for dispensing more than 25 million active OHIP numbers in a province with only 9 million residents. In spring 1990, the Liberal government issued personal red-and-white plastic health cards as a fraud-prevention measure. The program cost $40 million, and was expected to save $150 million over 10 years by limiting unauthorized use of health cards.
But once again, more cards were issued than there were Ontario residents. The control mechanisms that were supposed to accompany re-registration were abandoned in favour of speedy completion of the project. Once that happened, anyone who could supply an old OHIP number was issued a new one. The 1992 auditor's report noted that, despite all the expense and effort, the number of health cards in circulation still exceeded the Ontario population by more than 300 000.
By then, the health care system had the additional problem of relying on a card bearing only a name and number. When people present the health cards to a doctor or hospital, no corroborating identification is required.
The fraud problem was particularly acute in cities close to the US, where 37 million people have no health insurance. According to Ontario doctors who work in these cities, many former residents who moved to the US kept a mailing address in Canada in order to obtain a health card. Some Americans who own cottages in Ontario form another group of abusers: because they have an Ontario address, they can obtain a health card. Other cases involve out-of-country visitors borrowing valid OHIP cards from friends and family members for medical treatment in Canadian emergency wards."
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/eppp-archive/100/201/300/cdn_medical_association/cmaj/vol-154/1412.htm