Canadian Health Policy Failure
Canadian Health Policy Failure by Dr. Brett Skinner
English | Nov. 30, 2009 | ISBN: 0889752427 | 282 Pages | PDF | 2 MB
English | Nov. 30, 2009 | ISBN: 0889752427 | 282 Pages | PDF | 2 MB
Canada’s publicly funded single-payer health care system—commonly known as “Medicare”—is no ordinary government program. Many Canadians politically support Medicare with the kind of fervor often reserved for fundamentalist religions. If Medicare is, for some, like a national religion, then the Canada Health Act (CHA) is its sacred text. The five “principles” of the CHA are recited like a catechism in introductory university courses on health policy. It is standard political doctrine that the Canadian health care system is the best in the world. To suggest that alternative health policy approaches might produce better outcomes for patients, taxpayers, and health care providers is often treated like blasphemy. Faithful devotion to Medicare is considered by many to be the very essence of what it means to be “Canadian.” Yet, despite all the rhetoric used by Medicare’s advocates, the reality is that popular notions about the superiority of Canada’s health care system are not supported by the facts. Most other developed countries that share Canada’s core social goals for health care actually have better health care systems.