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 ...
$11,126?? That may be what PAYING Americans pay, but Isn’t it about half that don’t pay anything for their healthcare?
The things always missing from these arguments is the non quantifiable issues like “quality of care”.
It easy to get by paying half the US costs when you rely on the US to be the engine of health care innovation and development.
It also easy to produce cut rate medial costs if you willing to accept less then stellar medical care.
there is a reason the wealthy from around the world come to the USA for care rather then go to their local Government manged health care system.
A couple of years ago I looked into relocating from NYC to Vancouver, BC. Needless to say, even with the high combined state/local income tax rates we endure in NYC, total income taxes were much higher in BC than in NYC.
Then I added in the cost of my private health insurance and guess what - the total income tax cost PLUS health insurance cost is about the same in BC as it is in NYC.
American’s subsidize big pharma - the rest of the world tells them to halve the price otherwise they’ll allow generic copies.
The article raises the right point — what is an “average” Canadian and talks about how hard it is to determine that. Median is a good way to determine “average” rather than mean. But that can be distorted too. A large number of people don’t work and pay nothing. So should the measure be what does the average tax-paying Canadian pay? That seems more realistic. The remainder is how much does the average Canadian pay for other peoples’ healthcare.
And if you can get it. 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.
Per capita this is doubtful. A family of 4 isn't paying $45,000 for healthcare coverage.
They still have to wait months & months for an appointment.
Remember that woman who was so excited when Obama won because she thought she wasn’t going to have to pay her mortgage anymore?
Canadians are willing to tolerate a tax burden few Americans would accept.
The country’s founding values are different and equality not freedom is how Canadians see the health care debate.
That’s why single payer has a time gaining attraction in the US while on the other hand, Canadians live with the trade-offs that come with it.
What works for Canada doesn’t necessarily work for the US.
You just can’t transplant a country’s experience and expect people in another country to adapt to it.
That is per capita. Sum up all health care expenditures, divide by population. $11,126 per person/year for the year surveyed.
All trans-national comparisons are subject to a lot of a caveats, and in some dimensions there is no possible meaningful comparison (rates of urban gun violence US vs. Japan or Switzerland, for example.) In the US, think of the cost of ballistic wound and injury care in Chicago, for example. There is no hyper violent minority population shooting each other in Canada. Or Switzerland, or Japan. The emergency care costs that are the result of urban gunfire are not trivial, but there is no comparable component to Canadian health care expenditures. So, by the time you get done footnoting these transnational comparisons, they are basically worthless.
The real question is “What are malpractice rules in Canada?” Is it the cash cow that it is in the US? How much do Canadian doctors pay for Malpractice insurance?
"Per capita this is doubtful. A family of 4 isn't paying $45,000 for healthcare coverage."
Cf A state-by-state breakdown of per capita healthcare spending: "States with higher spending tend to have greater percentages of the population enrolled in Medicaid or Medicare, higher levels of personal income per capita and more healthcare capacity, while states with lower spending tend to have higher rates of uninsurance."
IOW, the less socialized the medicine in the state, the lower the cost, and the more money people have to spend, the more they spend on health care.
Are there government mandated price controls and rationing in Canada?
Rationing can be that you can’t see a doctor for months; built into the system.
August,2017 article.
.
One case in point...I,an ordinary middle class American,have had both my hips replaced.One was done 9 years ago,the other was done last year.
On both occasions I found myself in the recovery room of one of the world's most famous hospitals (hint:it's in Boston) no more than 11 business days after having made the phone call to make an appointment for an initial consultation with the surgeon.
In Canada (and Britain) one typically waits months for a hip replacement and often waits 6 months or more.
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.It was a big deal in Canada...he was labeled by many as a "traitor".
I had expensive surgery last year, so I paid my maximum; $7800 for premiums and $3200 for deductibles. A total of about $11,000 for me.
I used to vacation up north some years ago and recall a conversation with the owner of a fishing camp in Ontario.
The bad news is that he had a heart attack. The good news is that he was life-flighted to the mainland, had a multiple bypass and recovered. More good news was the total bill which was a little over $4,000 and change for the whole affair. There would have been NO bill at all had he not requested a semi-private room. Here’s the kicker - His total taxes for the year on the fishing camp was in the neighborhood of 75% of his gross income. Free wasn’t really free after all.
There was another owner of a marina who injured his knee when he tried to catch a boat that was coming into the dock too fast. He had to wait quite a while to see an orthopedist and had to cancel his appointment because there was a 6 foot swell on the lake and he couldn’t get across. He got another appointment, three or four MONTHS later.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.