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Sunday, February 16th, 2020

American health care system costs four times more than Canada’s single-payer system

Author:     IGOR DERYSH
Source:     Salon
Publication Date:     FEBRUARY 15, 2020 3:00PM (UTC)
 Link: American health care system costs four times more than Canada’s single-payer system
Stephan:   When you hear someone tell you single-payer universal healthcare is too expensive, you can be certain you are hearing someone who is either willfully ignorant, or is obligated in some way to the illness profit system. How can I be so positive about this? Because we rank 37th in the quality of our healthcare, and yet pay orders of magnitude  more than any other developed nation on earth. As to cost: it is projected that converting to single-payer universal healthcare will save more than $600 BILLION per year over the present system. Think about what could be done to foster wellbeing with a sum that vast? Climate change is gathering momentum; America needs to prepare for what is coming, and the only way do that without disaster is to convert to a publicly financed universal healthcare system financed in some way such that profit is not a factor.  We may share a border with Canada but, as this report describes, when it comes to healthcare we live in different worlds. Canada ranks, 9th in the world for quality of healthcare.

American VS Canadian Hospitals
Credit: Salon/Getty

The cost of administering health care in the United States costs four times as much as it does in Canada, which has had a single-payer system for nearly 60 years, according to a new study.

The average American pays a whopping $2,497 per year in administrative costs — which fund insurer overhead and salaries of administrative workers as well as executive pay packages and growing profits — compared to $551 per person per year in Canada, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last month. The study estimated that cutting administrative costs to Canadian levels could save more than $600 billion per year.

The data contradicts claims by opponents of single-payer health care systems, who have argued that private programs are more efficient than government-run health care. The debate over the feasibility of a single-payer health care has dominated the Democratic presidential race, where candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., advocate for a system similar to Canada’s while moderates like former Vice President […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean on Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 2:44 pm

    These are important statements toward our selection of candidates for president.