HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Comparison of US and Canadian Health Care System

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Discussion and Analysis1

Conclusion4

Comparison of US and Canadian Health Care System

Introduction

Canadian health care model has often been referred and represented as ideal health care system for United States of America. There is a huge difference between the health care system of US and Canada; as later has public funded system and is operating as single player. The health care system of US has multi players, and is heavily privatized; despite the similarities between the cultures of the two countries. This cultural similarity is often been cited as the main reason by the expert recommending Canadian health care system for US, because if a model is effective in Canada, it will be effective in US as well. Additionally, the generated appeal for application of Canadian health care model for US is because it seems to provide better assistance while remaining cost effective in nature.

In this connection, this paper attempts to compare the health care system of United States and Canada and will attempt to determine which system is more effective, while considering different factors.

Discussion and Analysis

Health care system of Canada is universal in nature covering every citizen of Canada, whereas one in every five non-elderly citizens of US is not insured. The spending of Canada on its health care is far less to the US i.e. 10.4 per cent of the GDP (David, 2012). However, 16 per cent of GDP of US is dedicated for the provision of health care services, but the outcomes are to a larger extent better than US (in context of average life expectancy and mortality rate).

June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill in their NBER Working paper "Health Status, Health Care, and Inequality: Canada vs. the U.S.," compare the performance of Canadian and US health care system. The one point agenda of their article seems to be focusing on exploration of the fact if US health care system is better than Canadian in terms of resources, performance, distribution and outcomes (O'Neill and O'Neill, 2007).

Health outcomes of both systems were examined by the authors, in order to establish a conclusion. It has been noted that improved life expectancy and mortality rate are not the factors which can determine the performance of a health care model appropriately, because life expectancy and mortality rate are affected by many other factors. For instance, low birth-weight which normally occurs because of substance abuse; and smoking is common among US population (O'Neill and O'Neill, 2007). The infant mortality rate if compare in accordance with the birth weight are identical in both countries. Moreover, Dave and June propose that if Canada would have the similar percentage of low birth weight babies, the infant mortality rate in Canada would have surpassed the US ratio. In relation to this, the fact can be established that causes of infant mortality rate are the behavior of population, and little health care system has to do with it.

An identical argument is presented by the authors in relation to life ...