Measuring Excellence in Healthcare Delivery: Canada

摘要

The year is 2009, and America is once again grappling with "healthcare reform." Health costs are climbing at an unsustainable rate, already consuming 17% of the nation's gross domestic product, nearly twice that of other industrialized nations. An estimated 46 million US citizens are without any healthcare insurance at all, and another 25 million do not have sufficient insurance to adequately cover their medical needs. The Obama administration has declared the American healthcare system "broke" and preservation of the status quo untenable. Reform is needed, but the nature of that reform and how much healthcare control government should seize to ensure effective and meaningful reform are being fiercely debated. Many are looking to neighboring Canada, wondering how the government-run health care in my country works and if it works. A certain amount of misinformation about Canadian Medicare has been spread in the popular media.