Kanadas Gesundheitskrise wird durch zu geringe öffentliche Ausgaben angeheizt, nicht durch zu hohe

Too often, neoliberals and conservatives will claim Canada spends a lot on health care, by misrepresenting the facts on spending. The total public and private component of health care spending is yes, on par with where other countries are that is correct, but where in lies the nuance, is how in Canada private sector actually pays more for health care than other countries in Europe, like the mixed systems in Netherlands or France people will glaze while ignoring that they don’t allow rich people to skip the line, and have more generous coverage than we do. This article settles the facts in perfectly, and I hope the right wingers change their opinions on it, instead of saying rich need to skip the line.

>Yet pundits continue to fuel a familiar refrain: health-care costs are unsustainable, and the government cannot afford more. Canadians spend approximately 11.2 per cent of GDP on health care. This represents overall spending. About 7.9 per cent is public spending, while the rest, 3.4 per cent, is private. As a share of overall health-care spending, Canada spends approximately 70 per cent publicly and 30 per cent privately.

>Comparing this to our peers provides important context. As a share of overall spending, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Norway spend 84 per cent or more publicly. As a percentage of GDP, Canada underspends at 7.9 per cent versus Germany and France, at 10.6 per cent and 9.7 per cent, respectively. The corollary also holds true; Canada has higher rates of private spending than others.

>This federal government continues to deepen this crisis. During last year’s “elbows up” campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged $1.4-billion for family medicine. The first federal budget allocated zero dollars. The College of Family Physicians has called this „a major setback for Canadian family medicine.“

>On pharmacare, despite interest from Newfoundland and Labrador’s’s premier, legislators in New Brunswick, Ontario, and elsewhere, no new bilateral pharmacare deals have been announced.

>The recent budget did include temporary infrastructure funding. Approximately $1.7-billion annually for three years—this is enough to build the equivalent of two hospitals for a mid-to-large municipality—for the entire country

Objective facts, Pharmacare is evidence based policy, it reduces health care costs in the long run, and how every other western country with universal health care universally negotiates drug prices and subsidizes them while we don’t, is unacceptable, and the only excuse that gets pushed around is just „muh provinces“, when the feds already have been able to do it with more contentious issues before, like childcare. Also, 1.7bn for 2 new hospitals is a joke. Since 1984, this country has seen an erosion of its hospital bed capacity by 63%, who do we have to thank for this austerity? Mulroney and Chretien’s bullshit, do nothing, ineffective austerity.

So what’s the solution? We need to not just spend more, but actually invest in public health care, and what does that look like? More emphasis on preventive care, actually universal health so fully universal dental, vision, drug, mental, long term care, coverage, hiring/training more doctors, including attracting more foreign trained ones, and rebuilding up our hospital bed capacity.

[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS?locations=CA](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS?locations=CA) (Canada’s hospital bed capacity)

[https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/system-profiles](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/system-profiles) (Go country by country to see coverage, and how we’re behind)