Does Canada’s Private health care system provide better patient satisfaction and access to health care than the United States’ health care system? Is it a good or bad trend?

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Introduction

In Canada, every individual has the access to medical care and discrimination is rare in the medical sector; discrimination based on an individual’s ability to pay, health insurance and Socio- economic status. Nonetheless, citizens in the country are faced with various restrictions on gaining access to better health care due to lack of hospital beds, shortage of health care providers, and longer waiting time to access a provider. Because of these challenges, private health care is the best option for Canadians. Despite the inadequacies, the current literature states that only 40% of the Canadian population are unsatisfied with their health care and are not in favor of private health care. About 54% of the United States population who support private health care to state that public medical care is unsatisfactory (Armstrong, Armstrong & Fegan, 1998).

Despite the fact that the United States is the leading country in the world with respect to health care expenditure, more than 42 million Americans have not access to medical insurance. There are more individuals in America without insurance than the whole population of Canada, with others in the US underinsured. This means that vast populations of Americans do not seek medical attention each year as they opted because they cannot afford to pay for the services from their “pockets.” The cost of medical treatment is the leading cause of America financial crisis (Deber, 2003). A number of plans have been recommended over the years to change U.S health care system. Some of these proposed changes include switching to private health care similar to the steps taken by Canada.

The Canadian constitution states that health care responsibilities rest with territorial and provincial governments. The system was developed by territorial and provincial authorities that have attained a national program composed of a series of interlocking health care plans which the Canadian government funds. Hospital services include inpatient care in the wards unless medical necessity warrants otherwise. Although the government has done its best in ensuring health care is provided in the best way possible, the best option was privatize public hospital in order to getter outstanding medical care for its vast population.The sparse nature of the population is the main cause of health care related problem in the country resulting to private health care as the best alternative that can reach the entire population (Gray, 1998). 60% of the Canadian health care expenses comes from public allocation placing it among the least publicly financed countries. Despite the fact that Canadian hospitals are known as public institutions, they are privately owned by non-profit organizations. Thus, lacks socialized medicine as believed because of a high number of privately owned hospitals.

Canada’s Health Care System

The territorial and provincial system of health care that Canada has poses challenges to the country health care. The diverse population proves to be challenging to manage health-wise. Because of this, the country as opted to use private nom-profit organization to manage its health care.The United States’ Health Care System American contemporary health care system is a sophisticated mix of private and public services and insurance. The citizens get health insurance and services from a variety of private and public sources (Grove, 2006). Most of them get health insurance and care from their workplaces and pay for a subsidized monthly premiums for these services. At old age, all Americans are eligible to apply for Medicare; quality public funded health insurance. Public assistance recipients in United States are allowed to apply to get more restricted health care insurance from Medicaid program that covers vision and dental needs.

Health Care System Costs

In 1992, the United States Accounting office estimated that the country health administration costs were approaching Canadian level as it could be able to cover the uninsured population. Wool handler et al. (2003), considered that the administration cost included health benefit programs, practitioners’ offices, nursing homes costs, home care agencies expenses, and other hospital costs. The result of the study indicated that United States spends $678 more per capita on health care as compared to Canada (Devereaux et al,. 2004). Patient Satisfaction

The commonwealth Fund International shows that 40% of Canadians were not satisfied with their health care system compared to 50% of United States citizens. The Americans cited a high cost and inadequate medical coverage as the main reasons for their dissatisfaction while the Canadians cited shortage of health care professional and lack of hospital beds. Pocket payment is one of the key concerns affecting both countries. It is a financial problem for all citizens to pay for medical care from their pockets hence increasing the mortality rate in both countries over the last five years.

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The above graph indicates that Canada is highly viewed health care-wise as compared to United States. Access to Health Care The literature reviews show that both countries have shortcomings in their medical or health care systems, with each state having a different problem. In the United States, dilemma regarding medical care rotates around underinsured and low-income citizens, whereby health care insurance does not cater for the needed services and patients’ cannot afford to pay by their own (Gray, 1998). As a result, the country opted to used generalized health care system to cater for all the citizens such as the Obama health care act. Whereas in Canada, the problem is centralized with health care categorization to the territorial and provincial authorities, who failed to address the concerns of its citizens opting to privatize health care to non-profit organizations. Survey conducted noted that 54% of Canadians said that getting a specialist help when needed was hard, compared to only 23% of Americans. In the United States, 28 percent stated that they had problems due to high cost while 21 percent of Canadians reported the same. The graph below shows the percentage of those getting difficulties.

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Discussion

The intention for conducting the systematic review was to determine if Canada private health care offers better patient satisfaction and access to health care as compared to the current health care system in United States. The literature review indicates that Canadian patients are satisfied with the private health care system in place than the Americans are with theirs. Although, health care access is limited in both states (Armstrong & Fegan, 1998). Despite the fact that all people in Canada are provided with medical cover, the system does not guarantee bed space when one is admitted, limited access to health care providers or specialists. Canadian patients face long waiting lines when trying to seek appointment with a doctor due to a large number of patients able to seek medical care in private facilities, in fact, several Canadian doctors have left the country since they believe that they cannot offer required care in Canada.In addition, the shortage of hospital beds in public hospitals delays many patients from getting skilled care they need. Canadian citizens are complete with each other for available space in private health care facilities. Also, health care has proved expensive in Canada; the average Canadian spends 58% of his income in taxes (Deber, 2003).Literature indicates that in the United States, access of health care is a problem due to a high cost of health care and limited health insurance. Individuals without insurance cover go without medical treatment due to their inability to pay for needed services.

Recommendation for Future Studies

Future studies ought to be undertaken to see how medical problems can be overcome so that patients in both states are not only to ensure that they get proper providers and facilities when they seek medical care but also guaranteed equal access to health care. Gaps in the literature include lack of unsystematic controlled trails. Such studies are hard to obtain when dealing with such data, because patient satisfaction rate come from opinions. The Canadian approach to health care has both positive and negative aspects in regard to their national medical/health care. The positive element is that its citizens do not want to get rid of their public national medical care. With this in mind, the United States much look at Canada’s private health care as a model for reform. This means that Canadian are happy with the introduction of private health care hence a good trend.ConclusionPatient’s satisfaction rate based in private health care is high in Canada than in the United States, however, access to health care is a problem to both countries. One can conquer that Canada has greater access to medical care since all the citizens can readily access private health care provider without paying for insurance. Although, the long waiting time and shortage of beds restrict many individuals from getting medical care.Not all Canadians are 100% satisfied with the state of private health care system, but when asked what changes to be made, they offered feedback and are opposed to eradication of national or public health care. They stated that other provinces and territories have enough public health facilities which if renovated can offer medical care.

References

Armstrong, P., Armstrong, H., & Fegan, C. (1998). Universal health care: What the United States can learn from the Canadian experience. New Press.

Deber, R. B. (2003). Health care reform: Lessons from Canada. American Journal of Public Health, 93(1), 20-24.

Devereaux, P. J., Heels-Ansdell, D., Lacchetti, C., Haines, T., Burns, K. E., Cook, D. J., … & Guyatt, G. H. (2004). Payments for care at private for-profit and private not-for-profit hospitals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 170(12), 1817-1824.

Gray, G. (1998). Access to medical care under strain: new pressures in Canada and Australia. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 23(6), 905-947.

Grove, C. (2006). Does Canada’s national health care system provide better patient satisfaction and access to health care than the United States’ health care system?.

Woolhandler, S., Campbell, T., & Himmelstein, D. U. (2003). Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada. New England Journal of Medicine, 349(8), 768-775.