[newyorknursey]

Originally Posted by spacenurse

Health care just as good, half as much as in U.S., report says

Canada's health system is as good or better than that of the United States and is delivered at half the cost, new research suggests.

A review in the inaugural issue of online medical journal Open Medicine, which was launched yesterday by a group of doctors who left the Canadian Medical Association Journal last year over an editorial dispute, examined the results of 38 major studies that compared health outcomes of patients in the two countries.

It found that while the United States spent an average of $7,129 U.S. per person on health care in 2006, compared with $2,956 U.S. per person in Canada, more studies favoured the latter country in terms of morbidity and mortality. They covered a wide range of diseases and conditions, including cancer and coronary artery disease....

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/s...c163db&k=13532

it's more like comparing a mercedes to a stable of workhorses; only the people with the most resources are going to be able to drive a mercedes(or have a whipple). Preventative or primary care is the key to health, not so sexy, but gets the job done.

It is true Canadians have to cross the border and pay high prices for the most advanced specialized care- but maybe what they save with a lifetime of solid primary and secondary care balances it out.

That would be an interesting study. How many users of the American system can tell you a story of the husband/child/father/best friend's expensive unexpected trip to the emergency room? Every one can; so that's money in the bank for the Canadian.

[multicollinearity]

I think only a pragmatic approach with moderation will solve the US healthcare financing problems.

This should not be a liberal v. conservative war but rather a common problem in need of a practical solution.

Other advanced countries spend far less than us and have more to show for what they do spend as far as longer lifespan and better health.

My Canadian relatives think Americans are stupid regarding healthcare financing, quite honestly. Sure they have complaints here and there - but they wouldn't want to live in the US system for anything. I have several Canadian relatives who live half and half in each country. So they do in fact have knowledge of both systems.

[CHATSDALE]

i am in favor of broader health care benefits but i, too, have heard of people who had difficulty in getting basic things like a tonsillectomy, md decided that it wasn't necessary child was brought to us and has been healthy since surgery
i don't see why the preventive care can't be implemented. surely would be great
my ex was in military and we had to go to base for health care...the waits were horrible however the care if you were admitted was as good as i have ever received in a private pay hospital
just a question if anyone knows the answer

1] how much is the tax rate there as compared in usa?

2] does this coover all meds?

3] do you have a choice of doctors/hospitals?

4] how does does nurses pay compare in the two countries?

[multicollinearity]

Originally Posted by CHATSDALE

i am in favor of broader health care benefits but i, too, have heard of people who had difficulty in getting basic things like a tonsillectomy, md decided that it wasn't necessary child was brought to us and has been healthy since surgery
i don't see why the preventive care can't be implemented. surely would be great
my ex was in military and we had to go to base for health care...the waits were horrible however the care if you were admitted was as good as i have ever received in a private pay hospital
just a question if anyone knows the answer

1] how much is the tax rate there as compared in usa?

I don't think we can compare the tax rates because Canadians have many differences in social funding besides healthcare. For example, I have two poor elderly Canadian relatives and they receive nice, cheery government subsidized housing that would make poor elderly Americans envious. They also receive government pensions that are a bit better than our social security. These are just a couple of examples. In addition, Canada is rapidly paying down its federal debt. What are we doing in the US? Hmm?

2] does this coover all meds?

No. Canadian coverage does not cover medications. Most get supplemental coverage through their employers. If you are low income then you pay a percentage of the cost. Example, one of my poor elderly relatives tells me she pays 15% of the cost. Thing is - Canadian medications sell for much less than the identical meds in the US.

3] do you have a choice of doctors/hospitals?

Any doctor any hospital in your province from what I've heard.

4] how does does nurses pay compare in the two countries?

From my research, it appears that Canadian RNs earn a bit less than US RNs. However, I know of Canadian RNs who earn almost six figures by working in Native Indian facilities.

I know two Canadians, one a physician, the other a psychologist who are working in the US to make more money. What I find interesting is that they both say if they got sick - really sick - they would high-tail it back to Canada in a hurry.

[CHATSDALE]

thanks for update

[HM2Viking]

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?...rticleId=12683

As described by the American press, Canada's health-care system takes the form of one long queue. The line begins on the westernmost edge of Vancouver, stretches all the way to Ottawa, and the overflow are encouraged to wait in Port Huron, Michigan, while sneering at the boorish habits of Americans. Nobody gets to sit.
Sadly for those invested in this odd knock against the Canadian system, the wait times are largely hype. A 2003 study found that the median wait time for elective surgeries in Canada was a little more than four weeks, while diagnostic tests took about three (with no wait times to speak of for emergency surgeries). By contrast, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data from 2001 found that 32 percent of American patients waited more than a month for elective surgery, and 5 percent waited more than four months. That, of course, doesn't count the millions of Americans who never seek surgery, or even the basic care necessary for a diagnosis, because they lack health coverage. If you can't see a doctor in the first place, you never have to wait for treatment. Canada's is a single-payer, rather than a socialized, system. That means the government is the primary purchaser of services, but the providers themselves are private. (In a socialized system, the physicians, nurses, and so forth are employed by the government.) The virtue of both the single-payer and the socialized systems, as compared with a largely private system, is that the government can wield its market share to bargain down prices -- which, in all of our model systems, including the VHA, it does.
...
A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the United States spends 345 percent more per capita on health administration than our neighbors up north. This is largely because the Canadian system doesn't have to employ insurance salespeople, or billing specialists in every doctor's office, or underwriters. Physicians don't have to negotiate different prices with dozens of insurance plans or fight with insurers for payment. Instead, they simply bill the government and are reimbursed.

Sounds like a good basis for a system!

[newyorknursey]

wow. someone did their homework. informed discussion is sooo juicy.

345 percent more per capita on health administration in the U.S.!!!

[ingelein]

Originally Posted by multicollinarity

Other advanced countries spend far less than us and have more to show for what they do spend as far as longer lifespan and better health.

My Canadian relatives think Americans are stupid regarding healthcare financing, quite honestly. Sure they have complaints here and there - but they wouldn't want to live in the US system for anything. I have several Canadian relatives who live half and half in each country. So they do in fact have knowledge of both systems.

Absolutely my own experience when talking to my German and Canadian reletives about their health care. They cannot understand how such a rich , intelligent country cannot set up a universal health care system. The German reletives seem to like their system and have less complaints than the Canadians, BUT the Canadian reletives have said they would not want to go with our brand of health insurance based care, they would prefer to keep their bank accounts solvent and not have to forclose on their home to pay medical bills. Even in this country there are surgeries and procedures that are either outrightly denied or there is a long wait to get the procedure OR to even see the MD in question.

[Kabin]

Originally Posted by multicollinarity

I know two Canadians, one a physician, the other a psychologist who are working in the US to make more money.

Related to that is the issue of Canadian taxes. A Canadian engineer I worked with was glad to work in the states.

[pickledpepperRN]

The Canadian Nurses association was well represented here.

Taming of the Queue
Not many conferences attended mostly by researchers and policy-makers
can boast having had the Prime Minister come for lunch. But Prime
Minister Stephen Harper made a lunchtime appearance at the 4th annual
Taming of the Queue conference in Ottawa on April 4, 2007 to
announce, along with federal Minister of Health Tony Clement,
agreements between the federal government and the 13 provinces and
territories with regard to meeting specific wait time targets in
exchange for targeted federal funds….

… In their closing comments, the conference co-chairs re-emphasized the
positive messages that were heard throughout the conference that real
progress was being made in terms of measuring, monitoring, managing
and, ultimately, reducing wait times in different parts of the system
in different parts of the country. But there also remained some very
hard work left to be done. …

… The advantage of course is that work on reducing wait times for primary care, mental health and children’s services will be greatly enhanced by the hard work already done in those areas that have benefited from so much research and political attention in recent years.

Finally, it is clear that the success stories related over the course
of the two days of the conference also very much reinforced an idea
that has been central to the work on wait times since the issue first
began to receive attention from researchers and politicians.
Successful wait time strategies require champions willing to take on
leadership roles and persevere in the face of sometimes strong
opposition. …

Begins on page 21 of the paper, not the PDF:
http://www.cprn.org/documents/48031_en.pdf

The opponents of single-payer national health insurance
claim that intolerable waiting times for health care would be
inevitable. They use the experience in Canada as proof.

Canada has had problems with excessive queues, but, as this report
demonstrates, they are being addressed, and with considerable success.

While Canada moves forward with queue management and fine tuning of
capacity, we continue to hang our heads in shame over the financial
barriers we place in front of tens of millions of Americans, which
prevent access to the most generously funded health care system ever
known.