Assignment 1

Change in Canadian Health care organizations

Although Canadian health care seems to be perennially in crisis, access, quality, and satisfaction in Canada are relatively high, and spending is relatively well controlled. The Canadian model is built on a recognition of the limits of markets in distributing medically necessary care.

Current issues in financing and delivering health care in Canada deserve attention. Key dilemmas include intergovernmental disputes between the federal and provincial levels of government and determining how to organize care, what to pay for (comprehensiveness), and what incentive structures to put in place for payment.

Lessons for the United States include the importance of universal coverage, the advantages of a single payer, and the fact that systems can be organized on a subnational basis.

Most markets distribute goods on the basis of supply and demand, with price signals used to affect production and consumption decisions. When price drops, demand should increase, with a near-infinite demand for free goods. Conversely, with fixed supply and high demand, price should rise until enough people get priced out of the market to balance supply against this new (lower) level of demand at the new equilibrium price. Yet health care markets stubbornly refuse to follow these economic laws. Economists have debated why this is so and whether they can force health care to behave in accordance with theory. If the discrepancies result only from “asymmetry of information” (because the person who provides services also determines which services must be purchased), providing better information can produce better-informed consumers and allow market forces to prevail. Yet most health economists, particularly outside the United States, recognize that the key problem instead rests with “need.” Consider the following scenarios and answer according to what you learned so far.

1. You are too ill to go to the hospital and there is a fee for ambulance. Should you be taken to the hospital under OHIP coverage? Why? Provide your rationalization

1. You are going to the dental clinic for dental hygiene, and your private insurance only covers up to 500$ yearly and your bill comes 800$ what are the changes that need to be done to have the full coverage for this matter?

1. You enter a hospital emergency room with a ruptured appendix but no money. Should you be treated anyhow