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Essay On Health Care In Canada

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Almost all Canadians receive their health care coverage through public funding, with spending decisions made at the province level. Healthcare in Canada, known as Medicare, is mostly free to those who use it, with no money needed to be paid out of pocket (Ridic et al., 2012). Medically necessary care, which is described as health-care services or supplies needed to prevent, diagnose, or treat an illness, injury, condition, disease, or its symptom, is covered, including maternity care and infertility treatments. In Canada, the government pays for about 70% of total health care spending. The other 30% is private spending. Most of that private spending is for drugs, dentists, and optometry, which are not covered by the government program (Ridic et al., 2012). Most Canadians buy supplemental private insurance through their jobs to cover the cost of things not covered by their Medicare. Most hospitals are publicly funded and they are required to operate under a fixed budget (Ridic et al., 2012). This is one of the ways that Canada controls its health care spending, …show more content…

This is another way that it controls spending. Canada has somewhat of a reputation for wait times. Data however does not support this assertion (Government of Canada, 2017). Canada is quite good about being transparent about its wait times. An individual can go to official websites and see the average wait times for all kinds of services just by using the internet. Most of the wait times in Canada are for things that are elective. They may be longer than some would like but they are not in any way life-threatening. Why are there wait times at all? Because limiting supply is cost-effective. Canada spends remarkably little on health care, which leaves the country more money to spend on lots of other things. They also focus more on outcomes that matter to health and less on process measures, like how fast can you get an optional MRI then other countries

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