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Health Economics in the U.S. and Canada

The intent in this study is to explore the differences between the Canadian single-payer health delivery system and the U.S. system of health delivery. The focus is on comparing them in terms of accessibility, benefits, cost analysis, and the overall positives and negatives of each system.

The basic distinction between the Canadian system of health care delivery and the U.S. system is that the Canadian system is one of universal health care provided through a single-payer health delivery system financed by the government, while the U.S. system is fundamentally market-driven and primarily delivered through third-party payment systems. Even more important as a distinction, however, is the symbolic value that Canadians place on having a universal coverage health care system. Almost uniformly writers about the Canadian health care system note that it has become a symbol of what it means to be Canadian and serves as an important contrast, for Canadians, of the difference between their society and the U.S. (Janigan, 1995). Thus, while economics is important, the cultural ethos is central to decisions about the system.

There are a variety of outlooks on each system, with conservatives tending to favor a market-driven system and liberals tending to favor some kind of government-backed system that ensures greater health care access for poor citizens. In general, the former tend to make decisions based on cost-benefit analyses and freedom of choice, while the latter emphasize social justice concerns and the good of the entire community as factored in to cost-benefit analyses. Neither is a particularly inexpensive health care delivery system, however, and the U.S. and Canada rank first and second in percentage of GDP spent on health care out of the 25 members in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. On the other hand, the quality of U.S. health care, based on infant mortality, life expectancy rates and other mea...

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Health Economics in the U.S. and Canada. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 21:21, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1691761.html