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Canadian Healthcare System Analysis

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III. Benefits of the Current Canadian Healthcare System
Canada has had publically funded national health insurance and the U.S. has relied mainly on private financing and delivery. During this period, spending in the United States grew much more rapidly despite a large population that was uninsured (Ridic, 2012). In 1984, the Canada Health Act was enacted, which defines the delivery system as it is today. Each provincial health plan is managed at the provincial level and provides comprehensive coverage of all medically necessary services. With minor exceptions, health coverage is available to all residents with no out of pocket charges. In fact, private health insurance for covered services is illegal. Health coverage in Canada is portable, …show more content…

Firstly, there are deficits in several areas such are angioplasty, cardiac catheterization and intensive care (Cooper, 1994). Also, waiting lists for certain surgical and diagnostic procedures are very long. The average wait for treatment is 13.3 weeks, and researchers say that the average waiting time in more than 80% of the procedures in one third longer than physicians consider clinically reasonable (Ridic, 2012). Canadians also sacrifice access to the most modern medical technology for primary care because when the government provides products at zero cost, they have to account for the extra costs in another way. With this line of reasoning, waiting lists are also a rationing measure, which is reasonable and fair. Critics of the Canadian system have had to deal with the fact that a lot of Canadians support Medicare. The biggest defense is that the system does in fact work well. Regardless of its problems, it provides its residents with access to all medically necessary hospital and physician services at a fraction of the per capita costs of the U.S …show more content…

Around 16% of the population or around 42 million people, lacks health insurance coverage at any point in time. This is the highest amount of people in the industrialized world and causes citizens immense financial hardship and insecurity. In this system, there is also an inability to successfully control costs. The United States has the largest GDP per capita and the largest healthcare spending per capita. U.S. health outcomes compare poorly with those in the developed world. It is 20th in the world in infant mortality, 29th in low-birth weight babies, and 6th in life expectancy (Ridic, 2012). Another downfall of this system is that some hospitals are able to get the wealthiest and privately funded patients, while those that care for the poor are suffering significant financial losses and closing. Financial incentives encourage expensive high-tech diagnosis, treatment, and specialization; there is not enough primary care as compared to Canada (Cooper,

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