Health Affairs
May 2010
Reinventing Primary Care: Lessons From Canada For The United States
By Barbara Starfield
Canada is, in many respects, culturally and economically similar to the United States, and until relatively recently, the two countries had similar health systems. However, since passage of the Canada Health Act in the 1970s, that nation's health statistics have become increasingly superior. Although the costs of Canada's health system are high by international standards, they are much lower than U.S. costs. This paper describes several factors likely to be responsible for Canada's better health at lower cost: universal financial coverage through a so-called single payer; features conducive to a strong primary care infrastructure; and provincial autonomy under general principles set by national law.
Differences in health — both overall and regarding social disparities — in two countries that are otherwise quite similar are attributed to the important effect of two related phenomena: achievement of important health-system characteristics and a strong clinical primary care infrastructure in Canada. Several international studies have confirmed the importance of three health-system characteristics of countries that achieve better health at lower cost: government attempts to distribute resources, such as personnel and facilities, equitably; universal financial coverage either through a single payer or regulated by the government; and low or no cost sharing for primary care services.
U.S. policy achieves none of the three structural characteristics of good health systems. Canada achieves all three. At the same time, although Canada's efforts to distribute resources equitably have been more extensive and successful than in the United States, Canada's are less adequate than in other countries, such as Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
The United States also is the only industrialized country to lack a national strategy to address important building blocks of a strong primary care system, including services delivery, workforce, information systems, medical products, vaccines, technology policy, financing, leadership, and governance. International experiences demonstrate that national stewardship, financing, and generation of resources are important for an adequate primary care infrastructure.
Health Affairs theme issue: Reinventing Primary Care
Comment: The May 2010 issue of Health Affairs is a theme issue on "Reinventing Primary Care." As a long time advocate of strengthening our primary care infrastructure, Barbara Starfield's comments serve as an entry to the concepts and policies discussed in this special issue. We need to enact a single payer financing system, but that would be of little consolation if the health care professionals were not there when we needed them.
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