american health insurance

A comparison of the health care systems of Canada and the United States has been made by various governmental and non-governmental health and public policy analysts. [1][2][3][4] Although Canadians and Americans have each looked to the other for ways to improve their respective health care systems, there exists a substantial amount of conflicting information regarding the relative merits of the two systems. [5] In Canada, the United States is used as a model and as a warning against increasing private sector involvement in health care. In the United States, meanwhile, Canada's monopsonistic health system is seen by different sides of the ideological spectrum as either a model to be followed or avoided.

Government involvement

The two neighbours are a dramatic contrast. A general agency for several health insurers, covering Delaware and Pennsylvania, USA. Canada has one of the world's most fully socialized health care systems (with the exception of services noted below) while the United States is one of only two OECD countries (with Mexico) not to have some form of guaranteed health insurance for all citizens.

The governments of both nations are closely involved in the delivery of health care. The central structural difference between the two is in health insurance. In Canada, the federal government is committed to providing funding support to its provincial governments for health care expenditures as long as the province in question abides by accessibility guarantees as set out in the Canada Health Act, which explicitly prohibits billing end users for procedures that are covered by Medicare.