Private health insurance for covered services is illegal. Most physicians are paid on a fee for service basis and enjoy a great deal of practice autonomy. With minor exceptions, health coverage is available to all residents with no out of pocket charges. Under the Act, each provincial health plan is administered at the provincial level and provides comprehensive first dollar coverage of all medically necessary services. The provisions of the 1984 Canada Health Act define the health care delivery system as it currently operates. During this period, spending in the United States has grown much more rapidly despite large groups that either uninsured or minimally insured. While Canada has had publicly funded national health insurance, the United States has relied largely on private financing and delivery. Since 1971 the health care system has moved in different directions. As recently as 1971, both the United States and Canada spent approximately 7,5 % of their GDP’s on health care. By 1971 Canada had a national health insurance plan, providing coverage for both hospitalization and physician’ services. By 1961 all ten provinces and the two territories had hospital insurance plans of their own with the federal government paying one half of the costs. In 1956, the federal parliament enacted the Hospital and Diagnostic Services Act laying the groundwork for a nationwide system of hospital insurance. The main feature of this plan was the creation of the regional system of hospitals: local hospitals for primary care, district hospitals for more complex cases, and base hospitals for the most difficult cases. The rural, low–income province was plagued by shortages of both hospital beds and medical practitioners. The Canadian health care system began to take on its current form when the province of Saskatchewan set up a hospitalization plan immediately after WWII. The origins of the current Canadian health care system can be traced back to the 1940’s when some provinces introduced compulsory health insurance. and Canada share a similar heritage in terms of language and culture the two countries also share a long border and have similar economic institutions (Folland et al 542). From the American point of view, Canada provides a good comparison and contrast in terms of the structure of its health care systems. Most of the population lives within 100 miles of the United States border. Production of health care services is private physicians receive payments on a negotiated fee for service and hospitals receive global budget payments (Method used by third party payers to control medical care costs by establishing total expenditure limits for medical services over a specified period of time).Ĭanada’s health care system is known as Medicare (the term should not be confused with the Medicare program for the elderly in the U.S.) Canada’s population is about 31 million people and the country is divided into 10 provinces and two territories. Consumer co-payments are negligible and physician choice is unlimited. General taxes finance NHI through a single payer system (only one third-party payer is responsible for paying health care providers for medical services).
1. CANADA’S NHI – OVERVIEW, ORIGINS AND HISTORYĬanada has a national health insurance program NHI (a government run health insurance system covering the entire population for a well defined medical benefits package).
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