Opinions on medicare
Posted on:3/24/2006
| Most Canadians highly value their medicare program. Polling data in the last few years have consistently cited it as the most important political issue in the minds of Canadian voters. |
Most Canadians highly value their medicare program. Polling data in the last few years have consistently cited it as the most important political issue in the minds of Canadian voters. Along with peacekeeping, the CBC ran a poll that found medicare to be one the most defining characteristics of Canada. It has increasingly become a source of controversy in Canadian politics. Due to massive healthcare transfer payment cuts at the hands of recent Federal governments, and the resulting shortfalls in Provincial government budgets, combined with rising costs due to and aging population, quality of care provided has decreased through the past two decades.
Commonly referenced problems include: limited access to diagnostic equipment (such as MRIs and CT Scanners), lengthy wait times for surgeries and serious physician shortages, which are particularly prevalent for General Practitioners(GP)/Family Doctors. In some parts of the country waiting times to acquire a GP have been quoted at several years. As a result some right-wing political figures and think tanks have proposed removing barriers to the existence of a parallel private health care system. Though polling suggests support for such reforms has been increasing, it has yet to be adopted as official policy by any of the main federal political parties. There have been private clinics opened and operating in Canada, but they are few and far between. Canadians who pay for their own services at Private Clinics are not penalized or prevented from using the public healthcare system simultaneously.
Current concerns involved the need for the Federal Government to improve healthcare funding to the Provinces, after the massive cuts enforced on the system over the past 20 years. Prime Minister Paul Martin has already reduced wait times, increased the number of doctors and nurses, by giving the Provinces back the money they lost during Conservative Party Leadership. The improvement was noticeably remarkable in 2005.
Despite wait times and funding cuts, Canadians do receive a very high standard of care, on par with what a privately-insured US citizen would get. The Canadian system is much more affordable for certain items such as patented drugs and this difference in price has created a large prescription drug exporting industry in Canada. Older medicines that are off patent tend to be somewhat more expensive due to less competition as entry into the Canadian market suffers from government barriers. The Canadian governments spend a smaller amount per capita on health care as the United States governments, while almost every Canadian citizen is fully covered. In the United States there are large percentages of the population who are uncovered or only marginally covered, despite higher proportional spending along with large private investment. Even more are just a job loss away from not having coverage (although in most cases the employer must maintain health care with copayment of the patient for a period of time after employment in the United States.)
In recent years, waiting lists for some procedures and treatments were very long. However, there have been some wait-time improvements through 2005 and 2006.
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