US Health Reform – Blame Canada?

At the turn of the millennium, the federal government and the provinces signed the Health Care Accords. Since then, Canada has poured $172 billion dollars into its health care system. The fix promised under the Accord doesn’t seem to have materialized, and as CARP has stated before, the status quo is not an option.

This is why CARP has been on the record supporting the search for a “third option”—doing things differently—based on best practices, organizational protocols, evidence-based procedures and innovation that will provide us with better value for our health care dollars. For example, the Health Accords pointed to aging at home, uniformity and cost-effectiveness in drug coverage and primary health care teams—all approaches that CARP Advocacy supports.

We have also been critical of red tape that prevents Canadians from being reimbursed to seek medical services in the US. But we’re talking about being reimbursed! Americans without insurance coverage have no such expectation.

So Canadians still fare better than our neighbours to the South. American health care is the most expensive in the world, but it is far from the best.

For starters, we spend much less of our GDP on health care, about $2500 less per capita—and with that, we cover everyone. For Americans, the GDP differential (they spend 6% more) amounts to $800 billion per year. The bulk of this money is spent on higher overhead costs (because of the huge administrative staff required to support the various private insurance plans). As Dr. Michael Rachlis puts it, “Canadians don’t need thousands of actuaries to set premiums or thousands of lawyers to deny care.” Click here to read Dr. Rachlis’ article.

We also live longer, have lower infant mortality rates and we have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. None of this means we should get complacent, though—not while the future of our own health care system still faces tremendous challenges. But at least it helps us listen to the overheated rhetoric in the US with a better understanding of what is really at issue—special interests, not the public interest.