Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., engaged in a filibuster today because he opposes a law being considered by the Canadian Parliament related to tobacco regulation. Franken rose to speak against Bunning’s filibuster.

“This is a perversion of the filibuster and a perversion of the role of the Senate. It used to be that the filibuster was reserved for matters of great principle, today it has become a way to play out the clock,” Franken said. “Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.”

Minnesota’s John Kline, the ranking Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee’s subcommittee on health, employment, labor and pensions, said that Canadians are crossing the border to access health care in the United States. “Well, when they come south for health care, medical care, they stop at the Mall of America and we’re glad to have them there as well,” he said.

But, are Canadians flocking to Minnesota — or the United States — for health care? The only quantitative study on the issue was conducted in the late-1990s by the journal Health Affairs.

Several sources of evidence from Canada reinforce the notion that Canadians seeking care in the United States were relatively rare during the study period. Only 90 of 18,000 respondents to the 1996 Canadian National Population Health Survey indicated that they had received health care in the United States during the previous twelve months, and only twenty indicated that they had gone to the United States expressly for the purpose of getting that care.

Kline’s witness was Dr. David Gratzer, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute. The institute has received funding from health insurance giant Cigna and several members of the health care industry make up the institute’s board of trustees.

Though the Mall of America doesn’t publish raw numbers (PDF), Canadians are one of the top foreign visitors annually.

Their publicists released a short and vague announcement: “Attention Canadians! Tonight’s Atmosphere performance in Toronto at the Opera House has been canceled due to border restrictions put in place by the order of the Canadian government and her queen. We regret the inconvenience. This show will be rescheduled for a later date.”

The Wall Street Journal wrote last fall that musicians are having increasing difficultly getting visas to perform across borders, even as the Internet makes their music more accessible around the globe. Are Slug and crew caught up in the same security trend that kept Brit Amy Winehouse from attending the Grammys?

OR:

If you can’t find any terrorists, go after the citizens

To their credit, both Rep. Gil Gutknecht and Gov. Tim Pawlenty have championed legalized drug importation from Canada. Apparently, the feds haven’t gotten the message, as a Madison Lake man recently received “an ominous letter from Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”

His crime?

“Hardie, the feds said, was involved in illegal prescription drug transactions.”

For the entire article in the Mankato Free Press, go here.