Canadians tend to mock Americans’ ignorance of our country and the rest of the world. We do know more about their country than they know about ours. But we also tend to be unsophisticated when it comes to the rest of the world.
The U.S.-based Commonwealth Fund released their latest comparison of seven health systems on June 25th. Predictably, the U.S. system rated last overall and that was the focus of the fund’s report and the U.S. and international coverage. But Canada was second last. We were last for overall quality, effective care and timeliness of access. We scored second last on efficiency. The report compared Canada with other countries 18 times in the text. These included two favourable comparisons and 16 unfavourable ones.
Read my op ed in the July 4th Toronto Star on how Canada is playing in the wrong league when we only compare ourselves to the US. Download it here.
See more on the Commonwealth Fund Study “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally, 2010 Update” at: http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Reports/2010/Jun/Mirror-Mirror-Update.aspx
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