A few years back I waited nine hours at the Children's Hospital for my daughter. At the time, I suggested to my wife an study considering the amount of hours lost and its impact on the economy.
Currently in Canada, the Fraser Institute is the only think-tank I'm aware of that consistently and regularly studies Canada's much adored public health system. Unfortunately, it's papers are usually dismissed more for being conservative and less for the content it provides.
To me, it is helpful to know another view on things. How else to know how and what to fix, amend and adjust in the system?
And so it is Fraser has looked at the cost of waiting for treatment in our system.
Conservatively, $1.2 billion. On the higher end, a whopping $3600.
Or $1200 per person. You add that to the average cost for health per capita (at $4522 according to the OECD and $4443 with WHO published on Wiki) and the cost ends up (assuming it's valid to add the two) of about $6700 per person - second to the United States. If we add the more liberal estimate and suddenly we're in U.S. territory). Now granted, there are wait times in other countries so for all I know it could keep Canada in the top 6 or 8 in terms of spending.
Nonetheless, one could reasonably ask, given the cost which is among the highest in the world, are we getting bang for our buck. My belief is no but this is not the point of this post.
Currently in Canada, the Fraser Institute is the only think-tank I'm aware of that consistently and regularly studies Canada's much adored public health system. Unfortunately, it's papers are usually dismissed more for being conservative and less for the content it provides.
To me, it is helpful to know another view on things. How else to know how and what to fix, amend and adjust in the system?
And so it is Fraser has looked at the cost of waiting for treatment in our system.
Conservatively, $1.2 billion. On the higher end, a whopping $3600.
Or $1200 per person. You add that to the average cost for health per capita (at $4522 according to the OECD and $4443 with WHO published on Wiki) and the cost ends up (assuming it's valid to add the two) of about $6700 per person - second to the United States. If we add the more liberal estimate and suddenly we're in U.S. territory). Now granted, there are wait times in other countries so for all I know it could keep Canada in the top 6 or 8 in terms of spending.
Nonetheless, one could reasonably ask, given the cost which is among the highest in the world, are we getting bang for our buck. My belief is no but this is not the point of this post.
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