Health care in Canada - from wikipedia

[LSK]

After http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1218299&mesg_id=1218299">seeing Sicko I am starting to learn more details about other countries health care. Not knowing where to start, I decided to try wikipedia.

Here is some key points from the wikipedia article on Canada's health care.

The Canada Health Act is a piece of Canadian federal legislation, adopted in 1984, that lists the conditions and criteria to which the provinces and territories must conform in order to receive the full amount of negotiated transfer payments relating to health care. The legislation encourages the provinces to maintain public health insurance plans for their residents and discourages the use of extra-billing and user fees in health care delivery. The purpose, and the effect, of the act is to maintain national standards for public health care delivery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Health_Act

The various levels of government pay for about 70% of Canadians' health care, although this number has decreased somewhat in recent years.

snip

About 30% of Canadians' health care is paid for through the private sector. This mostly goes towards services not covered or only partially covered by Medicare such as prescription drugs, dentistry and optometry. Many Canadians have private health insurance, often through their employers, that cover these expenses. There are also large private entities that can buy priority access to medical services in Canada, such as WCB in BC.

snip

The Canadian system is for the most part publicly funded, yet most of the services are provided by private enterprises, private corporations. Most all doctors do not receive an annual salary, but receive a fee per visit or service.

snip

Each province regulates its medical profession through a self-governing College of Physicians and Surgeons, which is responsible for licensing physicians, setting practice standards, and investigating and disciplining its members.

Wait Times

The wait times to get into hospitals can span weeks or months, including for simple procedures. According to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Institute">Fraser Institute, treatment time from initial referral by a GP through consultation with a specialist to final treatment, across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), averaged 17.7 weeks, 2005.<9><10> However, the Fraser Institute's report is greatly at odds with the 2007 (and earlier) reports of the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a government-sponsored watchdog agency.<11> Although there are long waits for some non-emergency procedures (notably hip- and knee-replacement surgery, plastic surgeries, and eye surgery) and long waits for specific other procedures in specific provinces, most waits appear to be normal with respect to other health care systems (see table, below).

Medical Professional Shortage

Canada's shortage of medical practitioners causes problems.<12> With 2.1 doctors per thousand population, Canada is well below the OECD average of 3.0, although its 9.9 nurses per thousand was slightly above the OECD average of 8.3.<13> Suggested solutions include increasing the number of training spaces for doctors in Canada, as well as streamlining the licensing process for foreign doctors already in the country.<14>

Doctors in Canada make an average of $202,000 a year (2006, before expenses). Alberta has the highest average salary of around $230,000.00 while Quebec has the lowest average annual salary $165,000.00, creating interprovincial competition for doctors and contributing to local shortages.<15>

Canadian health care in comparison

The comparison of Canada's Health Care system is often made to its neighbor the U.S.A. which spends the most in the world per capita, and is ranked 37th in the world, by the World Health Organization; when in fact many sources rate the Health Care Systems in France, and in Italy as the top two in the world.<16>Canada's Health System was ranked 30th, using certain specific criteria. It should be noted however, that the WHO Health Care Ranking has been criticized for its choice of ranking criteria and statistical methods, and the WHO is currently revising its methodology and is withholding new rankings until the problems are addressed.<17>

Canada spends no more than the G7 average on health care as a fraction of GDP; however, most health statistics in Canada are at or above the G7 average<18>. In some health statistics, Canada has slightly better numbers than the United States, although there are certainly differences by each individual province and state. Direct comparisons of health statistics across nations is complex, and conclusions should be arrived at cautiously, and only after more in-depth research is performed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Canada (the excerpted part is near the middle and at the end, the beginning is a History)

I know some of you do not trust wikipedia, but you are free to check the sources that are provided on these pages.

Also note the link describing the Fraser Institute which put out a study on wait times.

[RufusTFirefly]

1. Fraser Institute -- conservative, libertarian think tank

The Fraser Institute is a hotbed of global warming deniers and passionate privatizers. It's not surprising that they would be leading the charge against national health.

UPON EDIT: More on the Fraser Institute (from SourceWatch)

[warren pease]

2. Isn't Health Canada under financial pressure from...

the recent plague of right wing PMs in Ottawa who want to privatize the whole thing and are defunding it precisely to produce discontent among Canadians in hopes of gaining consensus for a version of the US system? This is the blueprint Thatcher and Major followed re the NHS, and the result has been declines in service, extended wait times, deteriorating facilities, fewer medical staff -- and resultant lowering of the UK among other WHO monitored countries in the usual range of vital indices such as live births per 1000, average birth weight, average life span, average disease-free life span and so forth.

Is this what's now happening in Canada? I know the parasites in the US for-profit medical industry lust after Canada's 33 or so million potential "consumers." Have they made inroads with the tory governments, participated in the defunding game plan, and are just waiting for Canadians to experience terminal disgust with Health Canada and start agitating for a privatized system?

I damn sure hope not, but I'd be very interested in hearing from Canadians on the subject.


Thanks,

wp