Canada's Public Health Care System

Portability means that Canadians have access to public health insurance even when they travel within Canada or internationally. Accessibility means that no Canadian will be discriminated against on the basis of income, age, health, etc. These conditions lay the foundation for Canada’s health care system. Additionally the Canada Health Act aims to protect, promote, and restore the physical and mental well being of Canadians and focuses on delivering medically necessary procedures in terms of need and not ability to pay. (“Canada Health Act,” 1984) Many Canadians take great pride in the notion of a universal healthcare and the idea of not having to pay upfront fees for medical services but in reality this notion is overstated and ignores the disadvantages of the healthcare sector. In fact in the latest Commonwealth Study, Canada was compared to eleven other major industrialized countries around the world, and was actually ranked second to last, just above the U.S.A (Flood, 2014) Canadians are often caught up in the idea that we have a great health care system by comparing it the U.S.A’s, but simply being better than our neighbouring country is not an

Most Canadians are very proud of their health care because it provides citizens universal coverage on the basis of need. However, in the recent decade, Canadians have observed obvious deterioration in the quality of the system in regards to waiting times, availability of the best technology, and adequate numbers of doctors and nurses. The apparent decline within the system has made many Canadians more open to a variety of options than they were a decade ago, provided that the core elements of the system are preserved and that these changes lead to tangible improvements in quality without damaging accessibility. In the article Canadians’ Thoughts on Their Health Care System: Preserving the Canadian Model through Innovation by Matthew Mendelsohn, he stated that 1/3 of Canadians support the two-tiered healthcare system, which offers its citizens an option of public or private health care. Canada will benefit from a two-tier health care system because it will shorten waiting times, other countries with two-tier healthcare have proven to be successful, will encourage doctors to return and stay in Canada, introduce competition and give citizens freedom to choose.

While many may argue that the Canadian health care system provides equal treatment to every Canadian, evidence shows that this is not the case. There are major discrepancies within the system regarding Indigenous people that need to be addressed including several factors such as: housing issues, stereotypes Aboriginals face and the lack of Aboriginal doctors.

Health care is an essential service needed by citizens. As a result, the government plays an important role by designing an appropriate health care system for its citizens. In this paper, a comparison between the health care system in the U.S. and Canada has been made. Using various literary sources, the comparison has been done considering the four components of health care services delivery; financing, insurance, delivery, and payment. The findings indicate that the health care system in the U.S. is expensive but more efficient than the single-payer health care system in Canada.

In the text, “Altered States”, by Kate Lunau, readers experience a miracle of a story regarding Juan Torres, and his amazing recovery from what was said to be a vegetative state. This life-changing story about Juan really connects with the readers, as it truly is a moving story. Readers are able to connect with this story in many ways, as they may recall something in their life that was also a miracle, just like Juan’s story. There are many views on this controversy of Juan and his sudden awakening from the vegetative state in which he categorized. Some readers may view this as medically impossible, such as the doctor’s may have thought. Others may see this as a miracle from heaven above, in relation to their religious views. Personally, I

In Canada, there appears to be a publicly funded health care system whose main role is to help create healthier communities. However, how healthcare is being funded is very crucial to the Canadian system because they have been controversies over how health policy is dispersed between the levels of government. The Canadian health care system gives an advantage to those who have equitable access to necessary physician and hospital, without the ability for an individual to pay for services. This ideal is tremendously great because access and services are ensured to patients who have the same opportunity and medical conditions. This essay is going to explicate on how privatization will be detrimental to the health care system, and why publicly funded health care is the best criteria that should be associated with the Canadian system.

Canada’s system is another great example of the affordability of UHC. According to the World Health Organization, check-ups, medications and surgeries are thirty to sixty percent cheaper in Canada than in the U.S. (Merino 132). Why? Well, Diane Francis, author of the National Post article “LBJ Invented Canada’s Superior Health System”, offers one explanation. Francis argues that in Canada drugs are cheaper because Canadian provinces buy the drugs in bulk through a centralized system, unlike the U.S., which makes the government programs Medicare and Medicaid buy from different sources (Merino 132). Because of the monopoly the Canadian government has on the pharmaceutical industry, the price of drugs can be manipulated by the government, making

There is plenty of evidence to validate that many Canadians are incorrect in believing that they have “the best healthcare system in the world”. Spending on healthcare in Canada continues to outpace the government spending program in growth and is limiting public investments in other areas that would make for an overall more effective society (Daniel Muzyka). Canada is the 10th highest spender, spending an average of $2,600 per Canadian per year. Recent studies by Brett Skinner have looked at trends in the annual growth rates for provincial healthcare expenditures and total government revenue. “He found that if recent trends persist, provincial government spending on healthcare will consume more than half of total revenues from all sources in six of 10 provinces by the year 2020” (Neil Stuart).

Over the past decade there has been a major debate over healthcare reform across the globe, including Canada. The Canadian health care system is called Medicare and can be described as a single-payer system. In essence, the majority of Canadians receive health care through a publicly funded system that consists of federal transfers to the ten provincial governments who then decided how the money is to be allocated in conjunction with the federal health care standards. These standards were set by the Canada Health Act of 1985 (henceforth “the Act”), which states that each province must adhere to the Act’s five main principles in order to receive funding; these principles include: universal coverage for all medically necessary care,

The lessons of Canadian national health insurance are as straightforward as they are neglected (Oberlander, 2016). Having a single government-operated insurance plan greatly reduces administrative costs and complexity. It concentrates purchasing power to reduce prices, enables budgetary control over health spending, and guarantees all legal residents, regardless of age, health status, income, or occupation, coverage for core medical services. Canadian Medicare charges patients no copayments or deductibles for hospital or physician services. Controlling medical spending does not, the Canadian experience demonstrates, require cost sharing that deters utilization. The Canadian system is hardly perfect. All countries struggle with tensions among cost, access, and quality; at times, Canada has grappled with fiscal pressures, wait lists for some services, and public dissatisfaction. Yet its problems pale in comparison to those in the United

Over the years Canada has been making efforts to adopt an integrated health care system. There is existence of disconnected sections in the healthcare system that involves hospitals; doctor’s working conditions, community service groups among others. Various provinces in Canada are taking risks and experimenting with different structures and approaches in an effort to provide better services and overall improved healthcare to its residents. Examples include: Regional Health Authorities and Local Health Integration Networks. Despite all these efforts, Canada’s regional health authorities still do not have characteristics of a fully integrated system. (Hospital Management Research Unit 1996, 1997). In contrast to Canada, most developed countries

Canada is a country composed of many different people from many different cultures including some native indigenous people, much like the United States. Similar to many other countries, Canada is attempting to become more culturally conscious and provide culturally-competent healthcare. According to Leininger and McFarland (2002), “there is an urgent need to integrate the many cultures of Canada into a harmonious, functioning society using sound cultural care research-based data in practice” (p. 494). Although the movement towards transcultural nursing care began in the 1960s when Leininger visited Canada to promote the study of transcultural nursing, it is still a work in progress as there are not a great number of nurses prepared by formal education to promote and develop transcultural nursing care (Leininger & McFarland, 2014). Canada’s current health care system is “publicly financed, but privately run” and based on the five founding principles that mandate the health care must be universal, portable, comprehensive, accessible and publicly administered (Cackett, Ferguson, & Irvine, 2005). The ten provinces within Canada are individually responsible for funding, developing and assessing the provisions of hospital care, providing salaries to health professionals and determining reimbursement for physician services (Cackett, Ferguson, & Irvine, 2005).

Canada’s health care policy was designed to give all residents equal right and access to health care professionals. Although health care is available to all Canadian citizens, it publicly funded, not free. The provinces have separate health care plans but they all share common characteristics which were decided in the Canada Health Act. The Canada Health Act of 1984 was an amalgamation of two previous acts with an addition to give all Canadians access to health services; however, recently Canada’s health care policy has been challenged. It has been argued that there is confusion in the meaning of accessibility (Wilson & Rosenberg, 2004) and that Canada’s health care policy does not address the need for competent patient care (Liberman,

services especially for high – tech specialty care. To avoid delays in treatment, many Canadians travel south to the United States for more advanced treatment. Critics of the Canadian system must deal with the fact that most Canadians support their version of Medicare. The single most important defense of medical care delivery in Canada is that it works relatively well. Regardless of the problems faced by the system, critics must face the reality that the medical care system provides its residents with access to all “medically necessary hospital and physician services” at a fraction of the per capita cost of the U.S system The United Sates health care system the United States has one of the largest and most complex health care system in the world

The Canadian provinces and territories have primary responsibility for organizing and delivering health services and educating, accrediting, and licensing health care providers. Many provinces and territories have established regional health authorities that plan and deliver publicly funded health services on a local basis. Thus, the regional health authorities are responsible for providing financially and delivering hospital, and long-term care, community, and public health and mental services. In 2013, Canada spent 10.9% of its GDP on health care, or US$4,759 per person, which is a lot higher than the average spent by countries in Europe but lower than the US. The government and other public sectors cover approximately 77% of health expenditures. The largest health care expenditure for the country is on hospitals, which is about 30% of it. Governments pay for a greater portion of the costs of physicians and hospitals. Dental care