And then there are those legendary wait times Among countries that measured wait times for necessary care services (not all did), Canada ranked a lowly 9th out of 9 (that’s as bad as it gets), with only 22.3 per cent of patients able to make an in-person, telephone or video appointment on the same or next day when sick. And they were tied with citizens of France for having to wait for longer than a month for an appointment with a specialist (65.2 per cent) – rating an 8 out of 9 score, with 58.3 per cent waiting for longer than two months for elective surgery – rating another 9 out of 9. When measured by those indicators, study co-authors Moir and Barrua rate Canada’s performance among peer countries as “modest to poor.” And it’s not because Canadian families didn’t pay their share. Of universal health-care participants in OECD, only Germany, New Zealand and Switzerland spent more. The art of comparing unequals In making international comparisons of costs and money exchanges, experts resort to references about GDP – gross domestic product – which refers to the total value of all finished goods and services produced within a country in a specific time period. This allows a comparative measure between the peers, in this case Canada’s 11.5 per cent of its GDP rates it the fourth highest among its OECD partners. When it comes to real money comparisons, analysts use the Purchasing Power Parity model, which is a measure of the relative value of currencies that compares the prices of purchasing a fixed basket of goods and services in different countries. (Thanks, Britannica). In this survey, Canada’s spending per capita is 7,035 in U.S. dollars and it locks Canada into the 9th rank. But that’s getting picky. How much do Canadians pay for what analysts consider an “average to poor” value? In a study released early in 2024, the Fraser Institute reported the average amounts which Canadians paid for their health-care coverage through taxation, in addition to any specifically dedicated premiums for health-care insurance (which still apply in some provinces). The estimated tax contributions ranged from $5,629 for an unattached single person with an average salary of $55,925; to $5,345 for a family unit of one adult and one child; and on up to $17,713 for a family of two adults and two children. Another metric – 10 per cent of Canadian families with the lowest incomes would have paid (in 2024) about $639, while 10 per cent of families who earned an average of $81,825 would have paid $7,758 for public health insurance; and families among the top-10 earners would have paid about $47,071. These amounts would be drawn from general taxes paid when buying fuel, food, beer, shoes, tickets to Taylor Swift concerts, etc. And note also, that over-the-counter health goods and private-pay health services not covered by the public health insurance service are still left for the happy income-earner to pay. Milan Korcok is a national award-winning medical writer who has been covering Canadian and international health care for many years. He is a dual Canadian/American citizen and lives in Fort Lauderdale, FL. He welcomes your comments at mkorcok@aol.com Health CSANews | SPRING 2025 | 33
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