Canadian Drug Coverage

This paper will discuss the Canadian healthcare system compared to the United States healthcare system. Although they’re close in proximity, these two nations have very different health care systems. Each healthcare system has its own difficulties, and is currently trying to find ways to improve. Canada currently uses the Universal Health Care system; which provides healthcare coverage to all Canadian citizens (Canadian Health Care, 2007). The services are executed on both a territorial and provincial basis, by staying within the guidelines that have been enforced by the federal government (Canadian Health Care, 2007).

When asked to describe what makes Canada unique compared to other countries, many outsiders might yell out “Hockey!” “Cold Weather!” or “Free Health Care!.” Health care is definitely one of Canada’s most noticeable trademarks when compared to the United States, but the reality is that our health care services are not what they are made out to be. Canadians tend to take pride in the fact that they have a Government funded health care system, but the system is failing at a rapid pace. One can gage the quality of health care in our country while at the emergency ward in any hospital, where most Canadians realize its downsides. The Government spends most of its budget towards health care but Canadians are not feeling an improvement. Waiting

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

In Canada the services, medication and hospital fee are controlled by the government, this created a better outcome for the security of the citizen. This regulation can lead to major saving in term of the GDP per capita paid by the government in this regard. The government negotiates drug prices so by doing that prices are more affordable for the people. It’s not necessary the uses of co-pays and deductible, but if any type of charged for any reason this can still be a dissent price by the patient. As result of this Canadian are proud and feel secured by the contribution of the social

Under Canada’s healthcare system, citizens are provided with primary care and medical treatments, as well as easy access to hospitals, clinics, and any other additional medical services. Regardless of annual income, this system allows all Canadian citizens access to medical services without immediate pay. Canada is fortunate to have a free healthcare plan since this necessity comes at a substantial expense for people living in the United States of America. For instance, the Commonwealth Fund's Health Insurance Survey mentions that “80 million people, around 43% of America's working-age adults, did not go to the doctor or access other medical services because of the cost” (Luhby). Evidently, Canada’s healthcare system is notorious in supporting the demands of the population, and creating a healthy and happy society at a manageable cost.

Today, Canada is the only industrialized nation without a national pharmacare plan (“Campaign for a National Drug Plan” 1). Currently, each province has its own pharmacare plan and this creates differences in medication prices across the nation. Price depends on drug efficacy, how commonly the drug is used, and to what extent the provincial government decides to subsidize the drug. Overall, drug coverage in Canada depends on a person’s age, income, and the province they live in. Today, one in ten Canadians cannot afford the medications that their doctors prescribe (“Pharmacare 2020” 2). Their lack of

Healthcare in the United States is extremely different from the rest of the world. Over the years government and political analysts have compared and contrasted the health care systems of the United States to that of Canada’s. Despite being located on the same continent both countries have different ways of delivering health care to its citizens. Canada has a single-payer system that is publicly funded, while the United States has a multi-payer system that relies heavily on privately owned healthcare. This could be due to the differences in how many patients are cared for compared to those in America or it could be just a matter of

     In the past, Canada’s government-funded, universally accessible, health care system has been praised and admired both at home and abroad as one of the finest in the world. A great source of pride and comfort for many Canadians is that it is based on five fundamental principles. Principles that are a reflection of the values held by Canadian citizens since the formation of Medicare in 1966. These principles were reinforced in the Canada Health Act, (CHA), of 1984 and state that the Canadian system is universal, accessible, portable, comprehensive and non-profit.

When discussing health care systems, Canada’s is often used as a possible model for the US. The two countries systems are very different being that Canada has a single payer, mostly publicly funded system, while the US has a multi-payer, heavily private system. So much of the appeal of the Canadian system is that is does more for less. They provide universal access to health care for its citizens, while almost one in five non-elderly Americans are uninsured. Many of these findings come from the results of the Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health from 2002-2003. This survey revealed that the health status is for the most part similar in the two countries, but income-related health disparities exist. For example, Americans in the poorest income bracket are more likely to have poor health compared to their “counterparts” in Canada. In "Health Status, Health Care, and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S.," (NBER Working Paper 13429) June O 'Neill and Dave M. O 'Neill take a closer look at the U.S. and Canadian health care systems. They examine whether the Canadian system delivers better health outcomes and distributes health resources more justifiably than the U.S. system. After conducting their own research, they have different findings then the survey. They feel that in the US we have too many outside factors contributing to our health to really be able to compare the two systems. Let’s take a deeper look into the different systems.

The Canadian government must implement an equitable national pharmacare program in which medically necessary prescription drugs are covered

Morgan, S. G., & Daw, J. R. (2012, August). Canadian pharmacare: Looking back, looking forward. Healthcare Policy, 8(1), 14–16. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3430151/

The way the Canadian health system and the U.S. health care systems are funded affects the consumers out of pocket share of health care costs. When a Canadian citizen visits

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

Canadians embrace our universal healthcare system as a core national value; we are proud to say that we live in a country that ensures access to healthcare for all (Stanbrook, 2015). Sadly, there is a gaping hole in our supposedly universal system which is the lack of public coverage for prescription drugs for most Canadians.  Many Canadians face drug costs they can not afford, forcing them to either take their medicines less often than prescribed or do without them entirely.  By creating a universal single payer system of public insurance coverage for prescription drugs, a universal drug coverage plan like our current healthcare system, it would ensure affordability and comprehensiveness.  This intervention uses Geoffrey Rose’s population

Canada’s health care system “can be described as a publicly-funded, privately-provided, universal, comprehensive, affordable, single-payer, provincially administered national health care system” (Bernard, 1992, p.103). Health care in Canada is provincial responsibility, with the Canada Health act being a federal legislation (Bernard, 1992, p. 102). Federal budget cuts, has caused various problems within Medicare such as increased waiting times and lack of new technology. Another problem with Medicare is that The Canada Heath Act does not cover expenditures for prescriptions drugs. All these issue has caused individuals to suggest making Medicare privatized. Although, Canada’s health care system consists of shortcomings, our universal