Study: Government-Run Healthcare Doesn’t Guarantee Equal Access
Canada’s government-run healthcare is supposed to provide all Canadians equal access to medical care. But the theory doesn’t work in practice.
• In Canada, better-off patients get appointments with doctors more readily than do welfare patients.
• A study by researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto was recently reported in the Los Angeles Times.
• The study sampled 375 general practitioners and family doctors in Ontario. Researchers pretended to be patients seeking an office visit. They phoned to make their request.
• Researchers called posing as a banker in good health, a banker with back problems and diabetes, a welfare user in good health or a welfare user with diabetes and back pain.
• This research indicates that a single-payer system isn’t a silver bullet for universal access.
Canadian doctors on the front lines of government-run healthcare apparently know how their health system really works.
• The doctors in the study got paid the same for a check-up, regardless of patient wealth or welfare use.
• Ontario has a single-payer government insurer. Patients don’t have any deductibles or copayments for a doctor’s office visit.
• Those pretending to be bankers were scheduled for an office visit 50 percent more often than those who said they were on welfare.
• Welfare patients got an appointment, a screening visit or placed on a waiting list 24 percent of the time. Those claiming to be bankers landed a check-up, a screening visit or on a waiting list 37 percent of the time.
• Callers pretending to be sick, regardless of whether a banker or welfare user, got appointments more often than did callers claiming to be healthy.
This research reveals some things about the Canadian health system. Single-payer advocates have held up Canadian healthcare as the standard for achieving universal access to medical care. Obviously, the hype doesn’t live up to the reality. Canadian doctors who have no financial incentive for favoring one new patient over another decide on other factors. This study indicated welfare patients were viewed as less desirable “in terms of their personalities, abilities, behavioral tendencies and role demands.”
HEALTHCARE NEWS AND INFORMATION
Volume 20 Number 8 April 17, 2013
Jim Edwards, Editor
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