Canada, health care systems

Extrapolation to other countries is not easy. Canada has a very different health-care system to the USA. A small-scale study involving 466 anxiety disorder patients in Quebec established a clear relationship between the severity of the disorder and utilization of health services (McCusker et al, 1997). Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder were particularly likely to seek treatment. No information on dmg use was presented. 

The remainder of this article examines the health care delivery systems in six very different countries. Even though Canada and the United States are similar countries with a shared border and language and with open communication, their health care delivery systems could not be any more different. Each side of the... 

Reinhardt (1993) points out that Canada and the European countries prioritize patients for resource allocation based on medical judgment and length of the queue for service. Price is negotiated between the associations of payers and providers, and they are strictly adhered to. In the American system, in contrast, resource allocation is based on price charged and the patients ability to pay - the so-called market driven health care. A market based system creates surplus capacity because of the uncertainty in demand, which drives up prices. As pointed out earlier, with information asymmetry, patients (as consumers) are unable to... 

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