GOLDSTEIN: Canadian Healthcare — High Costs, Long Waits, Mediocre Results

"Free" long before the pandemic occurs Myth Canada Healthcare offers one of the most expensive healthcare systems with some of the longest healthcare wait times in developed countries, and international standards have determined mediocre results.

Two and a half years after the pandemic, hospitals across the country have access to overwhelming emergency rooms and ICU units, mainly due to staff shortages. Closing or limiting, delaying surgery.

More money needs to be allocated to staff in the short term to deal with an imminent crisis.

But if money alone could solve the problem, there would have been no medical crisis before the pandemic.

According to a new report by the financially conservative Fraser Institute released Tuesday, Canadians were between 1997 and 2021, the earliest years in which comparable data existed. The cost of public health insurance paid by tax increased by 210.3% — 1.8 During that period, it grew many times faster than the average family income.

Last year alone, medical costs were $ 202.1 billion, or $ 5,284 per man, woman and child.

This does not include the additional cost of private health insurance purchased by many Canadians and the financial loss that patients incur when they have to wait months for surgery or treatment. ..

If the average single Canadian earns $ 51,140 this year, public health insurance will be taxed approximately $ 4,907, and a single parent and one child will be $ 73,805, $ 5,812. And a family of two parents and two children earns $ 156,086 and $ 15,847. .. 

Adjusting for the age of the population, most of GDP is spent on health care (11.3% in 2019). Switzerland is the only country with a high 11.4% of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the United States is excluded because it does not have universal insurance.

Despite high spending, Canada ranks 25th out of 26 comparable OECD countries in acute care beds per 1,000 people (2.0). 26 of 28 doctors (2.8); 14 of 28 nurses (10.4); 21 of 24 per million people on MRI (10.5), 22 of 26 on CT scanners (15.2) ..

Of the 10 OECD countries with universal health insurance to track latency, Canada has the lowest percentage of patients who finish last and wait for a specialist consultation within 4 weeks (5) 38%), less for 4 months or selective surgery (62%).

Last year, the US Federal Fund compared Canada's health care system to the equivalent developed countries of Australia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. — describes 71 performance indicators in five categories: access to care, care processes, management efficiency, fairness, and healthcare outcomes.

Canada finished in 10th place, and the United States was the last. Norway, the Netherlands and Australia were in the top three.

These problems with our healthcare system have evolved over the decades. It cannot be fixed immediately.

But pouring ever-increasing public money into health care — and those amounts have been reduced in recent years due to financial unsustainability is a system ..

Many developed countries with universal health insurance systems comparable to our system have better health care systems that combine public and private funding more efficiently.

Finally, none of this means criticism of medical professionals working in broken systems.