Healthcare: The Canadian Fiscal Crisis that America Would Love to Have

By Keith Edmund White

Editor-in-Chief

Canada's provinces are beginning to rein in healthcare spending, which means they are putting the breaks on near-double digit percent annual increases.  Sure, this is the beginning of a decade-delayed 'new reality' regarding raising healthcare spending.  But, as Keith White reports, if Canadian spending on healthcare constitutes a crisis, it's a crisis the United States would love to catch.

Jeffrey Simpson at The Globe & Mail highlights a big shift in how provinces are dealing with healthcare spending, and the possibility that provinces may need to start coming to gripes with containing healthcare spending.

After a decade allowing healthcare budgets to increase, all provinces, save one (i.e. Quebec), are holding back on healthcare spending.  Why?   Budgets are shrinking; healthcare costs are raising; and, after years of avoidance, provincial debts have to be reckoned with.

But the lurking sense of 'doom and gloom' in Simpson's article could easily bemuse an American observer.

Snap Shot: Canada Healthcare Costs; International Healthcare Costs

Canada's healthcare is anything but free; but, the cost of Canada's public healthcare system is still considerably lower, on a per capita basis, than the cost of healthcare spending in the United States.

The Fraser Institute last month released The Price of Public Health Care Insurance.  The short report estimates 2012 Canadian health spending and then breaks that spending down by different family types.  The report also shows the steep increase in Canadian healthcare spending witnessed between 2002 and the reports estimated 2012 figure.

Per Capita Cost.  The report also estimates that the 2012 per capita cost, or "the cost of the public health care insurance plan if every Canadian resident paid an equal share," of healthcare at approximately $3,779 CAD per Canadian (or roughly $3,859.00 USA).

Per Capita Country Comparison.  For a sense of how that compares to other nations' healthcare spending, check out this National Geographic (NG) graph using 2007 data.  Note:  This  chart pegs Canadian per capita spending at $3,895 USA.  I suspect the higher 2007 figure is more a reflection of the two countries considerable difference in exchange rates between 2007 and 2012.  This cross-graph comparison quirk notwithstanding, the NG graph still gives a sense of the difference between U.S. and Canadian spending on healthcare.