Medicare in Canada

Medicare in Canada

The health care policy and Medicare of Canada is focused on providing public funding for medical services inclusive of physician and hospital services free of cost. This is usually referred to as the “first-dollar public funding.” Studies and researches have indicated that public funding for providing services free of cost is linked to the increase in proportion of the services used by the poor. Claims about Canada's Medicare policy are based mostly on the findings of such researches and have little reference to the medical necessities. The policy underlining Medicare is coming under increased criticism as despite the concept of free services, there are significant barriers to obtaining medical services. The distribution of services according to the needs of the services required remains vague. Policy makers have failed to provide results in the past especially during the 1990s as fiscal pressures were imposed on Medicare. Also there was failure in the health care policy to account for the changes in the nature of healthcare delivery that needed to be made. This has been followed by an increase in the dissatisfaction of the public towards the performance of Medicare. This dismal remains despite the increase in public funding. An important policy change that needs to be made is to ensure that more is done apart from supporting the “first-dollar public finding.” This means that more attention is paid towards legislation and adopting a needs-based focus as a new policy (Gafni et.al, 2008).

One of the main current challenges to Medicare is healthcare funding. The criticism since the mid of the 1990 towards Medicare has mostly revolved around the health costs that seem to be getting out of control. Many advocates of Medicare have also stated that healthcare system is underfunded up to dangerous levels. The change in policy that most advocate to counter this issue is shifting to private insurance to pay for services and make people pay on their own. The critics tend to term the health care as a cost, while the advocates' state health funding as an investment. One of the easiest ways to find whether Medicare is facing shortage of funds or not is to examine the percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) being spent on health services. Canada is at present investing ten percent of its GDP on healthcare. This spending is very much the same as those by France and the United Kingdom. The three decades from 1975 to 2005 saw health spending by Canada increase from 7 percent of the GDP to 9.8 percent of the GDP. However, funding for hospitals and doctors has not changed significantly during this same period. This strategy would not help Medicare, and hence spending in this component of the healthcare must increase. Also the increase in healthcare funding as percentage the GDP does not necessarily represent an increase in health spending. They could possibly be the result of the decrease in taxes. When government cuts taxes down without changing the amount spent on health, the ...