By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Despite complaints about long waits
for services, Canadians are healthier than their U.S. neighbors
and receive more consistent medical care, according to a report
released on Tuesday.
A telephone survey of more than 8,000 people showed that
even though Americans spend nearly twice as much per capita for
health care, they have more trouble getting care and have more
unmet health needs than Canadians do.
The survey was done by Harvard Medical School researchers
who include members of Physicians for a National Health
Program, which advocates for a national health program in the
United States.
“These findings raise serious questions about what we’re
getting for the $2.1 trillion we’re spending on health care
this year,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor
of medicine at Harvard.
“We pay almost twice what Canada does for care, more than
$6,000 for every American, yet Canadians are healthier, and
live two to three years longer,” Himmelstein added in a
statement.
“Canadians had better access to most types of medical care
(with the single exception of pap smears),” Himmelstein and
colleagues wrote in the study, published in the American
Journal of Public Health.
“Canadians were 7 percent more likely to have a regular
doctor and 19 percent less likely to have an unmet health need.
U.S. respondents were almost twice as likely to go without a
needed medicine due to cost (9.9 percent of U.S. respondents
couldn’t afford medicine versus 5.1 percent in Canada),” they
added.
UNMET NEEDS
“After taking into account income, age, sex, race and
immigrant status, Canadians were 33 percent more likely to have
a regular doctor and 27 percent less likely to have an unmet
health need.”
The researchers analyzed data from a telephone survey of
3,505 Canadian and 5,103 U.S. adults.
They wanted to see if there were any differences in health
between Canadians, who have a tax-supported national health
care system, and Americans, whose health care largely depends
on private insurers, employers or the free market, with older
Americans and the very poor cared for by Medicare, Medicaid and
other joint federal-state health insurance plans.
The researchers found that U.S. residents had higher rates
of diabetes, arthritis, chronic lung disease, high blood
pressure and obesity.
“Most of what we hear about the Canadian health care system
is negative; in particular, the long waiting times for medical
procedures,” Dr. Karen Lasser an instructor of medicine at
Harvard who worked on the study, said in a statement.
“But we found that waiting times affect few patients, only
3.5 percent of Canadians versus 0.7 percent of people in the
U.S. No one ever talks about the fact that low-income and
minority patients fare better in Canada,” she added.
“Based on our findings, if I had to choose between the two
systems for my patients, I would choose the Canadian system
hands down.”
The researchers said the study population was
representative of 206 million U.S. adults and 24 million
Canadian adults but noted that only half the Americans
contacted took part in the survey, and 60 percent of the
Canadians.
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