Posted on 03/19/2018 1:02:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Health care is perhaps Canada’s defining obsession. As a nation, we crow about it and complain about it. We deify Tommy Douglas, rage about wait times, fret over private clinics and fight campaigns on minute points of privatization.
But for all the endless studies, Royal Commissions and political bloviating, it can be hard to know how much Canadians actually pay for health care, not as a nation, but as individuals.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) believes Canada spent approximately $228 billion on health care in 2016. That’s 11.1 per cent of Canada’s entire GDP and $6,299 for every Canadian resident.
That per capita rate would put Canada near the high end of what other advanced economies pay. According to the CIHI, in 2014, the last year for which comparable data was available, Canada spent $5,543 per resident, more than the United Kingdom ($4,986) and Australia ($5,187) but less than Sweden ($6,245) and far less than the United States ($11,126).
Assuming roughly similar rates of growth, Canada will remain near the top of the tightly clustered group of wealthy countries that have strong public or mixed public/private systems in terms of per capita spending this year. (The primarily private system in the United States remains an outlier.)
But per capita is just an average. Not everyone pays the same. And figuring out what any individual Canadian, or even a representative sample of Canadian demographics, pays turns out to be a lot harder than it seems.
This week, the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver think-tank dedicated to small government thinking, took a thwack at the problem. Researchers at the institute used a proprietary system —the same one used to calculate the institute’s controversial Tax Freedom Day — to break Canadians into a host of economic tranches.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
126?? That may be what PAYING Americans pay, but Isn’t it about half that don’t pay anything for their healthcare?””
Which is why the rest of us pay for our own families and the deadbeats who all expect equal care.
One of the biggest drivers for our health care costs in North America, but especially in America, is obesity. Private health insurance needs to scale health care premiums to obesity (just like life insurance), tobacco/alcohol use etc, which should in general act as a deterrent to poor lifestyle choices.
RE: Also,a few years ago the Premier of one of Canada’s Provinces (can’t recall which one) needed heart surgery.Although he could have gone to any hospital in Montreal,Toronto or Vancouver he had his surgery in the United States
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That would be Danny Williams of St. John’s, Newfoundland.
But Williams — sometimes known as “Danny Millions” — is personally wealthy, having made a fortune in cable television.
How many Canadians can afford what he can?
They’re conflating health care with health insurance.
L
RE: the total income tax cost PLUS health insurance cost is about the same in BC as it is in NYC.
So, are you saying that “health insurance” ( for want of a better word ) in BC is actually INCLUDED in their total income tax?
RE: They come down to the US for CAT/MRI scans because you can get them scheduled in a week or so but up in Canada it’s up to three months or so.
That makes a huge difference when it comes to Cancer. You can’t wait 3 months to have that.
Government gets ahead by spending less on "customers" and focusing more on increasing its size, power, and tax take from "customers". I expect government run healthcare (or anything) to increase its staff and budget, but provide less service over time. This is happening in the NHS in the UK. Without the profit motive, there's only the number of people who work for you and the size of your budget to justify your salary and position.
RE: How much do Canadian doctors pay for Malpractice insurance?
Anywhere from about $2,000 (Canadian dollars) for a basic, outpatient family practice, to about $12,000 if you also do obstetrics, ER shifts, and assist at surgery. Also varies by region of the country.
See here: https://www.cmpa-acpm.ca/static-assets/pdf/membership/fees-and-payment/2016cal-e.pdf
That’s significantly lower than what a doctor has to pay here in the USA.
RE: August,2017 article.
Has anything changed in Canada (for better or worse ) since?
First of all...it's said that 90% of Canada's population lives with 100 miles of the border.That would suggest that a fair percentage of Canadians are dual citizens Canada/US.That would give them them the right to work in the US if they wanted to.Plattsburg,NY/Burlington,VT (close to Montreal)...Buffalo,NY (close to Toronto)...Detroit (a few minutes from Windsor,Ontario)...Seattle (not too far from Vancouver).So that would give such people US health insurance *and* Canadian insurance regardless of which country they live in.I'd wager that particularly when faced with a serious illness they'd choose Burlington,Buffalo,Detroit or Seattle.
How often are they sued? N Britain, there was no point in trying to sue the Doctors. They are Government employees.
Canadians are also a bit hypocritical on the subject.
They pay very high sales taxes of 15% or more to support their health care system. But they are not at all shy about coming to the US to do their shopping and then smuggle things home.
When I lived in Michigan they used to crash the malls every weekend. Michigan’s sales tax was 4% at the time.
The Canadian health care delays aren’t just a nuisance, they can be fatal. And you will never get an accurate cost of the system as there are hidden costs such as government infrastructure around the hospitals, and the cost of heavily subsidized nursing and medical programs that can be attributed to government departments other than the Department of Health. As someone mentioned above, a majority of working canadians also have insurance for items not covered by the government (usually jointly funded by the employee and employer) i.e. prescription drugs, semi-private or private hospital bed, medical assistive devices, dental care. If the majority of Canadians want subsidized healthcare that’s their decision. My biggest concern is that they prohibit private medical care and hospitals. Even the communist regimes of China and Vietnam permit private health care.
Is why they come down here.
One only has to compare the availability of MRI clinics in Ontario to those in the metro Detroit area to understand why there are months of waiting times for MRI scans in Canada as compared to S.E. Michigan. If needed, I can get one within two weeks..and it’s not due to a life threatening condition..........been there, done that.
Sickening alone that on AVERAGE we pay TWICE what anyone else pays.
Do you feel twice as healthy as a sweede or Aussie? Do you live twice as long? NO.
This health care program has too many rich people living off of it and telling too many lies. It is bull shit.
> American’s subsidize big pharma
I think that’s true. But Americans are also voting with our credit cards when we (I think?) order only a small fraction of pharms from overseas vendors.
I don’t see how we can have it both ways: enforceable patents, and low prices in new drugs.
The public face of the drug companies is beyond irritating, with TV ads that spend 80% of the time on stupid disclaimers.
Sounds reasonable to me on both counts. Nobody died and both got the care they needed when it was required.
The guy with the knee problem probably got better before he had to go to the doc anyway.
I’d like to understand better of how our regulatory environment developed. Do our very long processes actually reduce the number of bad products or are they in place to be a barrier-to-entry for competition?
I’ve seen both.
“”””Canada spent $5,543 per resident, more than the United Kingdom ($4,986) and Australia ($5,187) but less than Sweden ($6,245) and far less than the United States ($11,126).””””
This appears to have been written by one of Trudeau’s Leftist Journalists who want to make Canadians feel good about the high income taxes, sales taxes, gas taxes, liquor taxes paid by them to support health care.
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