Comparison Of Healthcare Systems

The private health and public policy analysts as well as the government have actually compared the health care systems of Canada and the United States of America. The United States of America have spent much more on health care issues in comparison to Canada, on a per-capita basis and as a percentage of GDP. In the year of 2006 the per capita spending for the health care in the United States of America was approximately $6714 US Dollars while in Canada it was $3678 US Dollars. The United States of America actually spent 15.3% of their GDP on the health care issues in that year. Canada on the other hand spent around 10% of their GDP on the health care issues. The total government spending per capita in the United States of America on health care was around 23% which was higher than the spending of the Canadian government. The expenditure of the United States of America government on health care was also just under 83% of the total spending of Canada.

There have been various studies which have come to different conclusions regarding the result of the disparity in spending. A review from a study of 2007 showed that while comparing the health outcomes in Canada and the United States of America, the health outcomes could have been superior among the patients who were cared for in Canada against those of the United States of America. But these differences are not consistent in any way at all. The life expectancy on the other hand is much more in Canada and also the infant mortality rate is much lower than that of the United States of America. There is a major debate that goes on in regards to the underlying causes of such differences. As per the World Health Organization's ratings of the overall health service performance which was published in 2000 used a composite measure of achievement in the level of health, its distribution, the level of responsiveness and also the fairness of such a financial contribution. It ranked Canada as 30th and the United States of America the 37th among 191 member nations.

The health care system in Canada is mostly funded by a mix of public as well as private funding wherein almost all the possible services are provided or delivered by the private providers who are both for the profit as well as not for the profit.

The costs for health care are rising in both the countries faster than the inflation itself. Though both the countries are trying to consider the changes to their systems, there is still the debate over whether resources should be added to the public or even the private sector. Both the Canadians and Americans have each looked at the other for different ways to improve their own health care systems. But there still exists a substantial amount of conflicting information in regards to the relative merits of both the systems.



In Canada the United States of America is used as a model and even a warning which is against the increasing private sector involvement in the financing health care. On the other hand in the United States of America Canada's monopolistic health system is looked at from different angles of the ideological spectrum as a model to be followed or avoided.

• John Palsson
• 13/05/2009, 6:59 AM
• 0 Comments