[ExI] Private and government R&D

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/7/18 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>:
> --- On Fri, 7/17/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 2009/7/18 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:
>>>  Why is the
>>>> Canadian system so much more efficient?
>>>
>>> ### Why do you say stuff like that?
>>
>> Canadian taxpayers pay less per capita for their universal
>> public
>> health system than US taxpayers do for their more limited
>> system. That
>> makes the US public health system much less efficient. Why
>> is that?
>
> Is that the measure of efficiency? Are you sure Canadians, too, are enough like Americans that that comparison makes sense?

Economic efficiency, what you get for your money. In Canada it's
almost all publicly provided, while in the US only some of it is
publicly provided, but at greater cost. There is then the additional
issue of health outcomes: does the US system, having a greater private
component, lead to better outcomes than in Canada albeit at a higher
total price? In fact the evidence points to the opposite, but even if
it were the case, the Canadian health consumer would still be
financially better off than his American counterpart taking out
private insurance to cover any deficit in the public system.

I would have thought that Canada is closer to the US demographically
than most other countries in the world. Canadians are thinner, but
tackling lifestyle issues is part of the job description of primary
health care providers, and is in fact one of the main arguments in
favour of universal health care.



-- 
Stathis Papaioannou