preview

Health Care Analysis

Good Essays

Comparison of the health care systems in Canada and the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Health spending per capita, in U.S. dollars PPP-adjusted, with the U.S. and Canada compared amongst other first world nations.
Comparison of the health care systems in Canada and the United Statesare often made by government, public health and public policy analysts.[1][2][3][4] The two countries had similar health care systems beforeCanada reformed its system in the 1960s and 1970s. The United Statesspends much more money on health care than Canada, on both a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP.[5] In 2006, per-capita spending for health care in Canada was US$3,678; in the U.S., US$6,714. The U.S. spent 15.3% of GDP …show more content…

In the United States, with its mixed public-private system, 16% or 45 million American residents are uninsured at any one time.[21] The U.S. is one of two OECD countries not to have some form of universal health coverage, the other being Turkey. Mexico established a universal healthcare program by November 2008.[22]
The governments of both nations are closely involved in health care. The central structural difference between the two is in health insurance. In Canada, the federal government is committed to providing funding support to its provincial governments for health care expenditures as long as the province in question abides by accessibility guarantees as set out in the Canada Health Act, which explicitly prohibits billing end users for procedures that are covered by Medicare. While some label Canada's system as "socialized medicine," the term is inaccurate. Unlike systems with public delivery, such as the UK, the Canadian system provides public coverage for private delivery. As Princeton University health economist Uwe E. Reinhardt notes, single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems, because doctors are in the private sector.[23] Similarly, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities, rather than being part of government.
In the U.S., direct

Get Access