Health Care Myths and Facts: Comparing the U.S. and Canadian Systems

If I’ve heard once, I’ve heard a thousand times, the U.S. Health care system is better than the Canadian system. And additionally: “the Canadian system is what the Democrats are trying to force on us.”

More comments follow:
“I don’t want to wait for 6 months to get to see my doctor.”
“I’ve heard that they whole country only has 5 MRI machines.”
“Canadian doctors, finding the profit-based American system so attractive, are moving to America in droves”

But what is the truth about the two systems?

The Canadian’s Health Care System biggest problems are wait times, an increasing shortage of health care professionals and a sharp increase in chronic, but probably preventable, diseases.

Many conservative-biased stories will cite research done by the Fraser Institute. This institute is a private think tank that is dedicated to the idea of free market reforms of Canadian public programs. In my opinion, you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. Anyway, the Fraser institute study states that wait times can be quite long for patients to gain access to specialists. Obviously, this is a big strike against the Canadian system.

But when you compare it the U.S. free market system, you can see some glaring problems with the U.S. system with the most obvious being that 45 million Americans go without Health Care and another large percentage have either limited policies or policies that carry ever increasing and cost prohibitive premiums. And even U.S. citizens with health care coverage are seeing an increase trend in which employers are moving more and more costs on to the employee and providing less and less benefits.

Here’s a fun fact: The population in Canada is 32 million. As I stated above, we have 45 million Americans without health insurance.

How can one nation insure all it’s people and one only create a “pay to play” system?

Probably the best quote I’ve come across regarding this topic went like this:
“The United States has the best health care system in the world, but the worst insurance.”

Yes, we in the United States, we do have the most advanced technology in health care. Yes, we can get into the doctor’s office in a timely manner, but all-in-all, in the U.S. it comes down to have or have-not cold equation. You either have and/or can afford health care or you can’t.

But, let’s back-up and get back to the truth of comparing some of the fundamental perceptions about the two systems.

As I stated earlier, many people think that waits times in Canada are too long. Here’s some facts for you.

More legitimate research shows that the average waiting time for knee replacement in Ontario is 8 weeks, as compared to 3 weeks in the U.S.

There are virtually no waits for emergent coronary artery surgery in Canada

With these perceptions, it seems we are more concerned about the Canadian Health Care system than the Canadians. How do Canadians feel about their system?

Patient satisfaction levels with the procedures and care are identical in both systems

Surveys show that Canadian doctors are far happier with their system than we are with ours. According to a 1992 poll, 85% prefer their system to ours; 83% rate the care in Canada as very good or excellent, and most physicians would urge their children to enter the profession.

Fewer than 300 out of Canada’s 50,000 physicians emigrate to the U.S. each year

In the fall of 2004, only 6% of Canadians felt that the quality of health care was falling.

Only 17% (of Canadians) felt their system needed completely overhauled while 33% of U.S. citizens feel this way (about their U.S. system).

Surveys show very high patient satisfaction in Canada. 96% prefer their system to ours, and 89% rate care good or excellent

Now, on to the question of the uninsured in American and what they really costs us. Many might have the perception that because 45 millions people are uninsured, they don’t cost us anything.

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. The insured do get sick and injured and they don’t hesitate to seek medical care even when they can’t pay. And it’s the insured that do pay – in increased health care premiums and in increased health care costs.

The cost of the care provided to the uninsured by hospitals in 2001 was $24 billion dollars.

In 2005, premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by private employers will include an extra $922 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured; premiums for individual coverage will cost an extra $341.

Treatment costs for uninsured US residents indirectly account for about $1 of every $12 insured US residents spend on health insurance premiums.

What about a cost comparison between the two systems?

Private insurers take, on average, 13% of premium dollars for overhead and profit. Overhead/profits are even higher, about 30%, in big managed care plans like U.S. Healthcare. In contrast, overhead consumes less than 2% of funds in the fee-for-service Medicare program, and less than 1% in Canada’s program.

Take a moment to absorb that fact. The much maligned Medicare system has an over head of only 2%.

Physicians in the U.S. face massive bureaucratic costs. The average office-based American doctor employs 1.5 clerical and managerial staff, spends 44% of gross income on overhead, and devotes 134 hours of his/her own time annually to billing.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported health care spending absorbs only 10 percent of the Canadian gross domestic product, compared to 14 percent of U.S. GDP

Of course, you do have to factor in that twenty-two percent of all taxes raised in Canada are spent on its health care system.

This piece wasn’t intended to be a piece that advocated for a single payer system in the U.S., because when I started investigating the facts about the two systems, I thought my conclusion would be that the two systems fit the two different political systems of each country. But the more I studied the facts, the more the single payers system seems to make sense.

As trends move towards higher premiums in the U.S. and as employers push more and more of the cost onto employees, it seems inevitable that a single payer system will have to be adopted.

But it won’t be without a fight from private interests who provide health care in the U.S.

Private insurers take, on average, 13% of premium dollars for overhead and profit. Overhead/profits are even higher, about 30%, in big managed care plans like U.S. Healthcare.

This loss of profit for the private sector will create a battleground. Just make sure you know the facts when you go to chose sides.

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Sources:

Medical News Today

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/why_the_us_needs_a_single_payer_health_system.php

http://www.mediresource.com/e/pages/hcc_survey/index_e.asp

http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticcontent/CMA/Content_Images/Inside_cma/Better-Access/Ipsos-Polling.pdf

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=173900

http://www.familiesusa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Paying_a_Premium_splash