Controlling Medical Care Costs in Canada

Excerpt

Canadian experience has taken on increasing importance in the United States as Americans continue to wrestle with physician cost increases well in excess of those to the north. Fee levels in the United States have risen much more rapidly than those in Canada since at least 1960, while per capita utilization has increased somewhat faster in Canada. On balance, the relative importance of fee levels in the comparative cost experience has outstripped that of per capita utilization.^1,2

But the "Canadian experience" has also shown itself to embody 10 unique provincial experiences. The difference in costs for physicians in Canada and the United States from 1971 through 1985 would have been far more, or far less, dramatic if the Canadian experience had mirrored that in Quebec, or that in British Columbia, respectively.¹ In his article in this issue of JAMA, Hughes³ updates and extends these previous comparative analyses.