Discussions

Canada sees increase in number of doctors, but at a cost

Many American physicians, myself included, support single-payer national health insurance, with global budgets for hospital care. A single, publicly accountable payer, coupled with global hospital budgets, are tools needed to assure cost control in healthcare systems. But I was recently reminded by one of my Canadian colleagues that some American “reforms” are getting a hearing north of the border. One of these is that hospitals should be paid by case-based activity fees rather than global budgets.