United States health system and the Canadian health system 

United States health system and the Canadian health system 

Introduction

Health care systems are categorized as one of the most significant departments in both developing and developed countries in the world. The system requires a hundred percent commitment from all the stakeholders to achieve quality services to all citizens irrespective of their ethnic background or even their social-economic status. For effective delivery of quality services, health systems work together with various stakeholders such as private sectors, insurers, educators, research centers, and even the researchers. The main aim of this research assignment is to compare the health care system in two highly industrialized and most developed nations globally. These nations include the American health care system and Canadian health care.  In the first section of this study paper, the study will give the general description of the two systems, including how they operate while in the second part of the study involves comparing and evaluating the two systems.

Canada lies in the class of the most industrialized country in the world. The Canadian government practices a national health insurance program which covers all health issues concerning the entire population for quality and reliable medical health package. Usually, the health insurance unit in Canada is universal. For effective delivery of health services, the National Health Insurance uses the general taxes to be able to finance the programs. In Canada, consumer co-payments are assumed to be negligible, and the doctor’s choices are not limited in any case (Tuohy, 1999). The delivery of health services to citizens is ordinarily private. The health specialists get paid on a negotiated fee plan for any type of service they offer, and the health institutions receive the global budget form of payments.

Canadian medical systems are identified as Medicare, which has got no relation with the Medicare program for the elderly in America. Canadian total population is estimated to be over thirty-one million citizens, and the nation is subdivided into ten small sections known as provinces and two territories. A big group of Canadian citizens stayed a hundred miles away from the US border. From America’s perspective, the Canadian health system offers a better comparison and contrast in terms of health system structure. America and Canada share a common and similar traditional in terms of culture and even the language of communication. Additionally, the two countries share a long border with almost the same economic centers.

The genesis of the present advanced health system in Canada can be traced back to the year 1941. During this time, some of the Canadian provinces agreed on the introduction of health insurance packages to all citizens. Saskatchewan province took the lead in adapting the current health care system where hospitalization projects took place after the Second World War (Samaritan et al. 2006). However, this province is the first to adopt the advanced health services it was plagued by inadequate of both the hospital’s patient beds and the medical physicians. This was taken seriously by the Canadian government, where there was a development plan on the expansion of regional systems of the hospitals in the whole country. The project aimed at the creation of local hospitals that were meant to carry the primary care locally, the district hospitals meant for handling more technical health issues, and the base complex hospitals which were meant to handle the most complex cases.

To maintain the growth curve of the Canadian health system, the federal parliament in Canada enacted a special section in the Canadian constitution known as Hospital and Diagnostic Services Act, which was meant to deal with the grassroots activities in the whole country (Fuchs, & Hahn 1991).  By the year 1961, all the ten provinces in Canada and the two significant territories which define Canada had acquired the hospital insurance packages where the national government supported the in paying half of the expenses they spend.  Canada started operating with the national health insurance package in the year 1971. The national insurance package provides full coverage of all matters concerning the hospital’s requirements and the medical practitioners who deliver the services. From 1971 after Canada started operating on the national health insurance package, both Canada and the United States of America spent approximately seven to five percent of the total GDP on matters to do with health care by ensuring the best medical equipment are set, and the right specialist is employed to deliver quality services to all patients regardless of their social-economic status. As Canada applies more efforts in putting the use of national health insurance packages, Americans concentrated much on financing the private sectors in delivering the services to the public. Due to the prolonged use of the private sectors, the United States spend curve rose regardless of the large groups which were not insured or partially insured.

The 1984 reforms about the Canada health act define the model of health care delivery systems as it is currently operating. In this Act, each provincial health plot is being offered on the provincial level. All Canadian citizens can receive quality health services with reduced or no charges. Most of the doctors are being paid with on a fee depending on the type of service they deliver, where they enjoy a great deal in practicing their careers. Covered services do not allow private health insurance packages. Most Canadian citizens have opted to supplement the private insurance packages to some of the services which are not covered, including the dental services and the drug prescription. Due to this, all the medical practitioners are put responsible for this where all the health plan effectively serves all the citizen in a province.

The public is not involved in the processes of reimbursement, which eventually takes place between the government, which is the insurer and the health care practitioners. The health ministry in each province t is entitled to monitor and control all the services delivered and the cost of the medical services to ensure all the citizens are served well. The issue of cost control is usually done primarily by the use of fixed global budgets and the estimated charges for medical practitioners. To be specific, all the operating budgets in the Canadian health systems are approved and financed by the ministry. The ministry also has the responsibility of supporting all the capital expenditures, which are used in funding bulk spending. Doctors’ charges are being set by the negotiations held periodically between the provincial health organizations and the health ministry. The United States of America physician s are on the average low, where the average income of a privately employed physician was about a hundred thousand dollars, which is five times a Canadian average worker.

Over the years, there has been a long discussion concerning the issue of healt5hy status in Canada. These discussions aim to raise concerns about reforming the health system. Health care in Canada has grown to be one of the most significant national interest. The health system in Canada emphasizes the issues of fairness in service delivery. Ensuring all the citizens are equally served regardless of where they have come from or even social-economic status. Quality of the services is regulated by the National health ministry to ensure the system saves as many lives as possible — respect and dignity between all the stakeholders in the medical systems and the citizens. Government activists are responsible for maintaining and controlling the dignity of the stakeholders and the public. This has promoted a good relationship between the people and the medical practitioners. Personal responsibility is another core societal value that the Canadian health systems have applied to ensure all the stakeholders work efficiently in delivering services to the public.

The United States has no single national health system in insurance programs. The health insurance sector in America is being hired in a private market center. Private health insurance packages in different commercial insurance organizations or even from nonprofit insurers. This makes it different from Canada, which has put all the health issues under the national public health insurance coverage. America has got a unique type of health system compared to Canada since it lacks the central body, which is responsible for governing all the health activities. The United States health system lacks uniformity like the one found in the Canadian policy. The country lacks universal health care services, which are the main thing used in the Canadian health system. Despite the many legislative acts that have been enacted to improve the united states health care system, only a few have been implemented, which makes it different from the Canadian system, which has shown tremendous improvement from one year to the other. The health care unit in America does not operate as a universal system, but it is divided into small sectors. This occurs in America due to the lack of a standard policy that would be used in triggering all national medical systems service delivery. The United States health care system also lacks well-streamlined financing, the delivery system, and even the payment. The insurers in America acts as the central intermediaries between the payment section and the funding. This makes it difficult to manage health care systems overall expenditure.

The American system is usually financed through the insurance package. All the employed people are responsible for funding their health care through private insurance organizations such as MCO, which is being paid l by those organizations which have employed them. The employers choose the insurance cover their employees to use, which limits them on the type of health service they may intend to acquire. The bigger problem comes to the small companies which have no enough money to cater to the premium health covers for their workers. This differentiates the United States health system with that of Canada, where everything is controlled nationally, thus making it easier and available to the public at all capacities.

Unlike in Canada, where the use of single-player systems has become common, the United States of America uses the multiplayer type of systems whereby several third-party networks, including the federal and the state governments and even the other commercial insurance companies, are entitled in reimbursing health care practitioners. One of the most common forms of reimbursement is the total charges used in the type of medical service delivered. However, prospective payment methods have become more common in America. Health care practitioners in America who make the more substantial part of MCOs get paid on fee- for service basis.  The medical practitioners in Medicare are also paid depending on the type of service they offer, which differs. In contrast to fee payment depending on the service a physician delivers, some of them are paid on a fixed amount regardless of the type of service they provide. This makes the united States system different from that of Canada, where the medical practitioners are strictly paid depending on the service they offer and no fixed payment.

From the year 1983, the federal government in the US has reimbursed the medical hospital a prospective basis. This is known as the Diagnosis-related Group type of system, which is made up of five hundred different payment divisions, which are based on the patient’s traits. This has helped the hospitals in receiving incentives on medical costs (Ridic et al. 2012. From the year the 1980s, several American states started applying selective contacts where many health care providers competed on treating the Medicaid patients. The US government also have helped in done efforts in shifting Medicare beneficiaries into MCOs to assist in controlling the health care costs and coordination of the services. The United States works hard and hard in improving state technology, which has been listed as the greatest strength of the American health care system. This differentiates America from the Canadian system, which instead keeps enacting national health laws to make the services free to the citizens.

For a whole country, the American system also employs the societal values. The government ensures equality of all Americans .regardless of the ethnic background, the United States health unit accommodates all Americans despite their social-economic status. This has been recorded as a recent change since America had suffered before in the issues of discrimination where the whites considered themselves superior to the blacks. The value of fairness as employed to make all the Americans equal without any form of discrimination. Another essential benefit includes quality services. The United States, like the Canadian health systems, ensures the quality of the service offered to the public. This is done by regulating the class of the drugs in the hospital and hospital research laboratories to ensure the results acquired are the right ones (Papa Nicolas et al. 2018). All patients should be served with respect and dignity. It’s another essential value that the United States health care systems have maintained until today, where the public views and needs are served with dignity and respect.

Both countries work so hard to maintain the required medical standards. However, the two countries fail to regulate the cost of the drugs prescribed to the patients. This because some of the medicines are very expensive, where some of the poor citizens are not able to purchase. This mostly happens in America, where the system is not universal like it is the case in the Canadian health system. America, despite being one of the leading countries in the world, has not managed to cover all the citizens with national medical covers, which are cheap and available to the needy families (Blomqvist et al. 2017). To consider those citizens who are not well of the government has not accommodated them sufficiently to make them feel they are part of the government. On the other side, Canada is still left behind in the shift of the new medical technologies, which are essential in diagnosing many health problems to the public.

Health care systems are an integral part of any countries economy. The United States health care system gets the highest government expenditure, which lies between 15% of the national GDP. The study compared the health systems between America and Canada. In the two countries, there are variations in terms of financing the provider payment techniques, centralization degree, and the central government responsibilities in both systems. The US stands to be the highest expenditures compared to Canada. The study concludes that the health systems rations their care through government provisions or in terms of government insurance, which incur lower in the total capital cost. The larger private systems in the United States waiting time takes a shorter time than the rationed methods in Canadian orders. America has been observed not satisfied with the type of health system they are they are using than Canadian citizens. The central gap between the two countries comes as a result of the challenges of the uninsured of more than forty million people. To improve the health services, the US government should ensure the uninsured forty million people are put under insurance cover to make them benefit fully from the insurance benefits. The Canadian government should also invest more in the new technologies to make sure quality and high-class services are offered to its citizens. With all put together, the health systems will make a significant improvement and save more lives.

References.

Blomqvist, A., & Busby, C. (2017). The Paradox of Productivity, Technology, and Innovation in             Canadian Healthcare. CD Howe Institute Commentary, 480.

Fuchs, V. R., & Hahn, J. S. (1990). How does Canada do it? A comparison of expenditures for    physicians’ services in the United States and Canada. New England Journal of   Medicine, 323(13), 884-890.

Papa Nicolas, I., Woskie, L. R., & Jha, A. K. (2018). Health care spending in the United States and other high-income countries. Jama, 319(10), 1024-1039.

Ridic, G., Gleason, S., & Ridic, O. (2012). Comparisons of health care systems in the United        States, Germany, and Canada. Material socio-medica, 24(2), 112.

Sanmartin, C., Berthelot, J. M., Ng, E., Murphy, K., Blackwell, D. L., Gentleman, J. F., … &        Simile, C. M. (2006). Comparing health and health care use in Canada and the United     States. Health Affairs, 25(4), 1133-1142.

Tuohy, C. H. (1999). Dynamics Of A Changing Health Sphere: The United States, Britain, And   Canada: This three-nation comparison dissects the underlying factors motivating and       inhibiting health system changes in the turbulent 1990s. Health Affairs, 18(3), 114-134.