Newspaper article in today's Vancouver Sun - Canada - comparing Canadian and American health systems -- no real surprises

[white.lynx]

   OTTAWA — The health of lowincome Canadians is better, and their access to health care is greater than that of uninsured, often low-income Americans, the results of a joint Canada-U.S. health survey released Wednesday suggest.

   The survey, conducted last year by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Centre for Health Statistics, involved more than 8,500 adults in both countries and found that the vast majority — 88 per cent of Canadians and 85 per cent of Americans — reported being in good to excellent health last year. 

   However, only 23 per cent of the lowest-income Canadians reported being in fair or poor health, significantly less than the 31 per cent of the poorest Americans, it said.

   The study also found that 21 per cent of Americans were obese compared with 15 per cent of Canadians. One in five American women reported being obese, compared with one in eight Canadian women.

   Previous research has suggested obesity may be more prevalent in the U.S., but this is the first definitive confirmation, said Diane Finegood, a scientific director of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research.

   U.S. women were also more likely to suffer severe mobility problems. Seven per cent reported they could not walk, stand or climb, compared with four per cent of Canadian women.

   The study does not explain the differences between the two countries, although Finegood said it might have to do with different levels of physical activity.

   Thirteen per cent of Americans and 11 per cent of Canadians reported that, over the past year, they had been unable to get the health care they needed, the report said. The gap was entirely due to the 40 million Americans without health insurance. They account for 11 per cent of all Americans who reported problems getting treatment, it said.

   Lower-income Canadians and Americans were both more likely to report having had difficulty getting health care, but the lowestincome Americans, at 27 per cent, were much more likely to have that complaint than the poorest Canadians, at 17 per cent.

   The most common barrier to gaining access to needed health care for Canadians was long waiting lists while, for Americans, it was the cost, the survey found.

   The report is released in the midst of a federal election campaign in which health care — its costs and access to it — is the top issue, according to polls.

   One conclusion from the report is that Canada’s health care system is as good or better than the U.S. system, for rich and poor alike, said Sharon Sholzberg-Gray, president and CEO of the Canadian Healthcare Association, which advocates a publicly funded system.

   But what’s really instructive is what the report doesn’t mention, she added.

   “We spend considerably less than Americans on health care,” she said, adding that, per person, Canadians spend not much more than half of what Americans spend and that, as a percentage of GDP, Americans spend 50 per cent more.

   “And for all that extra money they don’t have a better picture.” She added that applies to the health of individuals, as well as the health care system.

 
   About 42 per cent of Americans said their health care services were “excellent” compared with 39 per cent of Canadians, who were more likely to report that the quality was only “fair.”

   Uninsured Americans, however, were less likely than Canadians to report that the quality of their health care services was excellent, and more likely to report that it was fair or poor.

   In both countries, roughly 10 per cent of the population report having unmet health needs, but most Americans cite cost as the main barrier to care while the Canadians tend to blame waiting lists.

   The survey, the first attempt by Canada and the U.S. to collect comprehensive health and health care information using a single survey and a standard approach across countries, provides “a degree of comparability never before possible,” Statistics Canada said.

   Other results from the survey:
  
• Nineteen per cent of Canadians smoke compared with17 per cent of Americans.
  
• In both countries, the lowest income individuals reported poorer health, as well as higher levels of smoking and obesity.
  
• Low-income Americans, at 31 per cent, were more likely to be in fair or poorer health, than lowincome Canadians, at 23 per cent. There were no differences among higher-income groups.
  
• Canadians have universal access to publicly funded health care services, including physician and hospital services. Most Americans, other than the poor and elderly, require private insurance to cover the cost of these services.
  
• 85 per cent of Canadians were likely to have a regular doctor, compared to Americans at 80 per cent, the difference being entirely due to uninsured Americans.
  
• Uninsured Americans were also less likely to have contacted a doctor over the previous year.

 

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Larry
Rather than building character, adversity tends to reveal it
written using voice recognition software