Comparison of American and Canadian Healthcare Systems

U.S. Healthcare System v. Canada Healthcare System

The Canada healthcare system is usually considered as a probable model or standard for the United States healthcare system, particularly in relation to healthcare reform initiatives. The Canadian healthcare system largely differs from the United States one since it is a single-payer and largely publicly funded whereas the U.S. healthcare system is multi-payer and largely privately funded. However, Canadians and Americans seem to concur that they would not like each other's healthcare system though most Americans base their claims on ignorance regarding how the Canadian healthcare system works while Canadians don't understand how the U.S. healthcare system works. Despite the differences in the two healthcare systems with regards to objectives, there are similarities in the objectives of these systems. Moreover, the Canadian healthcare system provides important lessons through which the United States healthcare system can be improved or reformed.

U.S. And Canadian Healthcare Systems

As previously mentioned, the United States healthcare system is a multi-payer, mostly private system though it is seemingly culturally similar to the Canadian healthcare system ("Comparing the U.S. And Canadian Health Care Systems," n.d.). The American healthcare system is multi-payer since more Americans are encouraged to have health insurance since the country has not adopted universal coverage of healthcare services. The focus on health insurance in the U.S. healthcare system is driven by the fact that the country has more than 37 million people without health insurance whereas another 53 million are underinsured. This implies that the country has a huge population who are insufficiently insured in case of a severe illness or disease. Therefore, for United States citizens and/or residents, healthcare coverage is dependent on the health insurance provided either by the two major public programs or their employer (Bernard, n.d.). While Medicaid and Medicare provide health coverage for the poor and the elderly respectively, public and private employees have healthcare benefits and costs that significantly vary. Given that the country experiences increasing healthcare costs, public and private employers have difficulty in accessing healthcare benefits since their employers are unwilling to provide coverage.

In contrast, the Canadian healthcare system is a single-payer and largely public-funded system since it provides universal access to care services for the country's citizens. While the country provides universal access to healthcare for its citizens, it spends far less of its Gross Domestic Product on costs of healthcare services. Actually, the Canadian healthcare system is a cautiously developed hybrid system that reflects most political compromises through adopting a social program. Since Canada provides universal coverage, all Canadians regardless of whether they are poor or rich and their state of employment, health, and age have access to health insurance through the comprehensive system. The Canadian healthcare system has essentially no monetary obstacles to healthcare, which implies that Canadians can go to any doctor and receive care services without making any payments. The country also prohibits private health insurance that seemingly duplicates the comprehensive services provided through the provincial healthcare plans. Moreover, the Canadian healthcare system does not allow direct patient payments to healthcare providers, co-payments, and deductibles for any services provided.

Similarities between the Systems

As previously mentioned, the U.S. And Canadian healthcare systems have certain similarities despite their differences in structure. One of the similarities between the systems is that there is lack of equality in access to healthcare services. While the United States has attempted to enhance coverage through the Affordable Care Act, equality in access to coverage has been relatively difficult to achieve. Similarly, the Canadian system is based on universal coverage by has challenges in ensuring equality in access to healthcare as well as equality in health. Secondly, in both healthcare systems, the single most significant determinant of the population's health is the standard of living. For instance, in both countries, wealthy people seem to live longer and avoid disability longer as compared to the poor. Third, the U.S. And Canadian healthcare systems try to implement overall cost containment tools, which in turn generates several shortages. The countries experience shortages despite implementing cost containment measures because of the rising financial pressure on the system.

Differences between the Systems

There are numerous differences between the U.S. And Canadian healthcare systems, which are brought by the structure of these systems. One of the differences is that the American healthcare system emphasizes on health insurance through providing subsidies and mandating all citizens to have or face consequences through the Affordable Care Act. In contrast, Canada emphasizes on universality through the Canada Health Act, which implies that all residents must be covered through the comprehensive, public insurance program that is managed provincially but based on standardized terms and conditions (Lieberman, 2014). Secondly, unlike Americans, Canadians have coverage regardless of where they are treated in the country and despite their age, employment status, and health.

Third, while the Canadian healthcare system has no monetary barriers to care at the point of service, the American healthcare system has and will continue to have financial barriers. Fourth, the U.S. has abundant access to costly, high-technology clinical equipment while Canada has limited access to such equipment despite having a complete range of high-technology facilities. Fifth, unlike in the U.S. healthcare system, patients in the Canadian healthcare system do not engage in the reimbursement procedure since the process exclusively take place between the health care provider and the public insurer i.e. government (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012, p.113). Finally, while the U.S. spends more money in healthcare coverage and does not provide health insurance to most of its residents, the Canadian healthcare system provides coverage to all its residents are relatively lesser costs than the United States.

Evaluation and Recommendations for Improvement

Based on the similarities and differences between these healthcare systems and their respective goals and outcomes, it seems the Canadian healthcare system is much better than he U.S. healthcare system. Generally, the Canadian healthcare system is a model that provides important insights for improvement of the American healthcare system since Canada spends far less of its GDP on healthcare and still provides coverage for a huge portion of its population. Actually, while the Canadian healthcare system offers care privately, health coverage or insurance is funded by taxpayers (Helfgott, 2012). Unlike the United States healthcare system that is characterized by various complexities, the Canadian system is relatively simple to operate.