Comparison and Contrasts of the United States and Canadian Health Care Systems

The National healthcare debate is one that has been a continuing arguing point for the last decade. The goal is to provide healthcare to all Americans, regardless of whether they are able to afford insurance or not. In 2009, the U.S. National Health Care Act failed to come to be debated in the house. This Act would have called for the creation of a universal single-payer health care system. Under the policies this Act would enact, all medically-necessary medical care decided between doctor and patient would be paid for automatically and directly by the Government of the United States. In place of this Act, the compromise was the …show more content…

health system on quality”. (Docteur & Berenson, 2009).
A key arguing point against the National Health Care Act was the cost of implementing the program. “Health policy experts say guaranteeing coverage for all Americans may cost about $1.5 trillion over the next decade. That would be more than double the $634 billion 'down payment' President Barack Obama set aside for health reform in his budget”. (FoxNews.com, 2009). It is unknown how the rest of the money would be produced, but more than likely would have to come from taxpayers. The most difficult hurdle to overcome according to John Sheils is the cost of covering the uninsured. Currently Canadians spend about 55% of what Americans spend and have a longer life expectancy. “In 1999, health administration costs totaled at least $294.3 billion in the United States, or $1,059 per capita, as compared with $307 per capita in Canada. After exclusions, administration accounted for 31.0 percent of health care expenditures in the United States and 16.7 percent of health care expenditures in Canada. Canada's national health insurance program had overhead of 1.3 percent; the overhead among Canada's private insurers was higher than that in the United States (13.2 percent vs. 11.7 percent)”. (Universal Health Care, 2009). In the end, though we may have to