A just-released report from the prestigious Fraser Institute has once again found that although Canada’s is one of the most expensive universal-access health-care systems in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), its overall performance is modest to poor.
The study employed a “value for money approach,” and compared the cost and performance of 30 universal health-care systems in high-income countries. The results underscored that Canada spends more on health care than the majority of OECD countries with universal health-care systems, ranking highest for expenditure on health care as a percentage of GDP and ninth highest for health-care expenditure per capita.
The study examined the performance of each country’s health care system using 40 indicators in four categories: availability of resources, use of resources, access to resources, and quality and clinical performance
The Results Data suggests that Canada has substantially fewer human and capital medical resources than many in its category. After adjustment for age, Canada has:
- Significantly fewer physicians and offers fewer doctor consultations
- Less access to MRI and CT exams
- Rated ninth for the number of long-term care beds (per 1,000 over the age of 65)
- Ranked last (or next to last) for the degree of hospital activity
- Ranked seventh (out of ten) when measuring the percentage of patients who reported that cost was a barrier to access
“Increasingly, Canadians are having to face the imbalance between the value they receive and the relatively high amount of money they spend on their health-care system,” comments Gino Stirpe, Vice President of VUMI® Canada. “Wait times for treatment, shortages of hospital beds, less than state-of-the-art medical equipment, inability to access the latest drug therapies are just the tip of the iceberg when considering the health of the Canadian health system. It’s why a supplemental health insurance plan is the smart decision for those Canadians who want fast, comprehensive access to care for themselves and their families.”
Source: The Fraser Institute, November 16, 2023
