Health Economics in the U.S. and Canada

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, whi

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ioning health care services so that the funds that are available for health care are sufficient to cover all of them with a sum left over. This may indeed result in reductions of unnecessary surgeries, for example hysterectomies, but may also result in patients receiving inadequate care. In some respects, the health care reform debate in the U.S. has been skewed by the ongoing focus on costs, and cost containment. While important, Nancy McKenzie (1994) made the point that the debate often seems to ignore the more fundamental issue about actually caring for the sick and providing quality care. With the focus on controlling costs, a discussion about preventive care, about the use of alternative medicine, about high technologies and transplants, and about basic standards of patient care have not been at the center of the debate. In other words, the debate is not primarily about health care benefits or standards, but about cost control and how to shift costs. One can see that kind of thinking in Liebowitz' (1995) attempt to blame patients for over-consumption of medical resources. He speaks of reducing consumption of medical resources as if it were a commodity, rather than a service provided in order to restore the individual's
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Medicare Medicaid, Health Act, British Germans, Pros Cons, , Cost Analysis, Stanton Evans, health care, Nancy McKenzie, JW Mason, Consumer Reports, canadian system, health care services, care services, health care system, care system, health care delivery, delivery system, care delivery, health care reform, care reform, single-payer system, universal coverage, janigan 1995, care delivery system,
Approximate Word count = 3197
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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