The health care debate in America is often framed by an artificial contest between Canada and the United States. Politicians have invented a mythology of ailing Canadians on waitlists for urgent surgeries and sick Canucks flooding through our northern border seeking “world class” care.
The National Population Health Survey which studied 18,000 Canadians found that only 90 of those Canadians had received care in the United States during the previous year. Of those 90, only 20 had gone to the United States for the sole purpose of health care. That’s 0.001 percent.
But if you’re Canadian, don’t get too excited.
The World Health Organization created “The world health report 2000 - Health systems: improving performance,” a rating of health systems throughout the world. It indicates that Canada and the United States don’t even make the top twenty, coming in at 30 and 37 respectively.
Published in 2000, the WHO study assessed countries based on three overall goals: good health, responsiveness to the expectations of the population, and fairness of financial contribution.
Here are the top 10:
1) France
2) Italy
3) San Marino
4) Andorra
5) Malta
6) Singapore
7) Spain
8) Oman
9) Austria
10) Japan
Dr. Gro Brundtland, the director-general of WHO, concluded that a country’s health system is the responsibility of its government.
Brundtland wrote, “The careful and responsible management of the well-being of the population– stewardship – is the very essence of good government. The health of people is always a national priority: government responsibility for it is continuous and permanent.”
According to the report, the objectives of a health system should be:
- Improving health
- Achieving the best attainable average level of care, referred to as "goodness."
- The smallest attainable differences in care between individuals and groups, or "fairness."
The poor suffer most in underperforming health care systems. The worst health care systems are primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa, where inadequate health care results in the lowest life expectancies in the world.
"The poor are treated with less respect, given less choice of service providers and offered lower- quality amenities," said Brundtland. "In trying to buy health from their own pockets, they pay and become poorer.”
The study concludes that improving people’s health cannot be the only priority of a national health system. For health care to be accessible and equitable, a country must protect its citizens against crippling health care costs.
For further insight, watch Sick Around the World, a documentary by FRONTLINE which examines the health care systems of five capitalist countries.
Be well. If you can’t be well, try to be sick in France.
Sources:
World Health Organization’s Ranking of the World’s Health Systems. patientfactor.com. Retrieved July 20, 2015.
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-healt...
World Health Organization Assesses the World's Health Systems. who.int. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en
5 Myths About Canada’s Health Care System. aarp.org. Retrieved July 22, 2015.
http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/m...
Reviewed July 23, 2015
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith