New (and old) polls on health care satisfaction: Canada vs US

[mook]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1151492.html

The online polls surveyed 1,004 U.S. adults July 9-14 and 1,010 Canadians on June 5-7. They aren't scientific random samples, don't statistically mirror the population and thus have no margin of error. Rather, they resemble large focus groups to help see what people are thinking about a particular issue.
On key questions of care and costs, patients in the two countries clearly see things differently.
Asked about seeing their family doctors, for example, 59 percent of Americans said they could see them quickly when they needed to; 52 percent of Canadians said they could.
The difference in opinions magnified when it came to seeing medical specialists, with 47 percent of Americans saying they can see specialists without long waits. That was nearly twice as high as the 26 percent of Canadians who said they could see specialists without long waits.
Looked at another way, 65 percent of Canadians said they had access to all the health care services they needed at costs they could afford; 49 percent of Americans felt the same way.
...
Just 37 percent of Americans who make less than $50,000 a year say they have access to and can afford all the health care services they need, while 60 percent of those who make more say they can get all they need at costs they can afford.
The gap was much smaller in Canada, where 61 percent of those who earn less than $55,000 and 70 percent of those who make more than that said they had access to all the care they needed at costs they could afford.
In both countries, people with chronic conditions are more likely than those without such illnesses to say that they have access to the care they need.
In the United States, 59 percent of those with chronic conditions are satisfied, while 50 percent of those without chronic conditions are satisfied with their access to care.
In Canada, it's 69 percent of those with chronic conditions and 63 percent of those without.
On some questions, patients in both countries saw things virtually the same way, including access to care on weekends when needed.

I read this in the paper this morning. It's an un-scientific poll, although it is a reasonably large population sample.

Here's another article I read on the subject while finding this one (it's from 2 years ago):
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=c1c55309-756a-4c4a-a032-a1968442a1f7&k=77424

Americans in Canada prefer U.S. health care: poll

Americans living in Canada prefer the U.S. health-care system for speed, quality and diagnostic technology, says a new study. But they also applaud the equity and cost-effectiveness of Canada’s system. And in the final analysis, 40 per cent prefer the Canadian system.

The study, released Wednesday in the online medical journal Open Medicine, was based on the responses of 310 Americans living in Canada between two and five years, mostly in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.

There have been many studies that compare the two health-care systems, but this is likely the first time the Canadian and U.S. systems have been compared based on the perceptions of consumers who have experienced both.
...
The respondents were invited to participate through newspaper advertisements because there is no database of Americans living in Canada. Of the respondents, more than half had a household income of more than $100,000 a year, and 58 per cent had a master’s degree or higher. In a survey of this size, there is a margin of error between four and five per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Overall, the Americans said they preferred the U.S. system for emergency, specialist, hospital and diagnostic services, and said they preferred the timeliness and quality of the American system.

However, they also rated Canada’s system high for access to drug therapy and ranked the services of family physicians almost equally in both countries. They also rated the equity and cost efficiency of Canada’s system highly.

The participants were upper middle-class, mostly the kind of people likely to be well-insured in the U.S., said Lewis.

In all, 260 of the Americans identified wait times as the most significant negative feature of the Canadian system, while 192 identified quality of care as the most positive feature of the U.S. system.

In all, 196 of the Americans said cost efficiency was the best thing about the Canadian system, while 223 said cost inefficiency was the worst thing about the U.S. system.

I've always felt like the debate in America is too focused on buzzwords like "socialism," "fairness," "rationing," and "uninsured." We get so hung up on these things, when what it should really boil down to is customer satisfaction.

We should poll the populations of a variety of countries and find out what the actual populations think about their health care systems. Then weigh in our own cultural values, and go with whatever seems to make the most people happy for the lowest cost.

I wouldn't make major decisions about my business without benchmarking other companies. Yet we seem to think we should run our health care system without trying to learn anything from anyone else.

 

[blazerboy30]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1151492.html

I read this in the paper this morning. It's an un-scientific poll, although it is a reasonably large population sample.

Here's another article I read on the subject while finding this one (it's from 2 years ago):
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=c1c55309-756a-4c4a-a032-a1968442a1f7&k=77424

I've always felt like the debate in America is too focused on buzzwords like "socialism," "fairness," "rationing," and "uninsured." We get so hung up on these things, when what it should really boil down to is customer satisfaction.

We should poll the populations of a variety of countries and find out what the actual populations think about their health care systems. Then weigh in our own cultural values, and go with whatever seems to make the most people happy for the lowest cost.

I wouldn't make major decisions about my business without benchmarking other companies. Yet we seem to think we should run our health care system without trying to learn anything from anyone else.

Somewhat interesting data.

However, I disagree with your assertion that it should boil down to "customer satisfaction", unless of course, you are including all associated costs in the "customer satisfaction" metric.

There is no doubt we could increase the number of people who are happy with their access to medical services by taxing the top 1% of Americans to pay for 5% of the people's healthcare. "Satisfaction with access to services" should not be the top metric for making these decisions.

 

[mook]

Somewhat interesting data.

However, I disagree with your assertion that it should boil down to "customer satisfaction", unless of course, you are including all associated costs in the "customer satisfaction" metric.

There is no doubt we could increase the number of people who are happy with their access to medical services by taxing the top 1% of Americans to pay for 5% of the people's healthcare. "Satisfaction with access to services" should not be the top metric for making these decisions.

That's the part where I think, like I said, we weigh in our own cultural values. Danish people are obviously more culturally open to hosing wealthy people than we are.

 

[blazerboy30]

That's the part where I think, like I said, we weigh in our own cultural values. Danish people are obviously more culturally open to hosing wealthy people than we are.

Agreed.

We would also need to try to consider the affects on R&D. Our system is clearly superior for driving innovation and providing new technology for the rest of the world. Simply polling individuals about their "satisfaction" wouldn't touch on this metric.

 

[mook]

Agreed.

We would also need to try to consider the affects on R&D. Our system is clearly superior for driving innovation and providing new technology for the rest of the world. Simply polling individuals about their "satisfaction" wouldn't touch on this metric.

I've always thought it was pretty unfair that the rest of the world gets a cheap ride on our largess. Our ridiculous spending subsidizes innovation that the rest of the industrialized world benefits from without having to pay.

I don't know how you change that paradigm, but it seems to me there's got to be a better system than just letting America pick up the tab for most of the world's health care innovation. (It's kind of similar to how we pick up the tab for much of the world military policing activity.)

Maybe if we actually managed to control costs in the US, it'd force other countries to invest more? *shrug*

 

[maxiep]

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1151492.html

I read this in the paper this morning. It's an un-scientific poll, although it is a reasonably large population sample.

Here's another article I read on the subject while finding this one (it's from 2 years ago):
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/story.html?id=c1c55309-756a-4c4a-a032-a1968442a1f7&k=77424

I've always felt like the debate in America is too focused on buzzwords like "socialism," "fairness," "rationing," and "uninsured." We get so hung up on these things, when what it should really boil down to is customer satisfaction.

We should poll the populations of a variety of countries and find out what the actual populations think about their health care systems. Then weigh in our own cultural values, and go with whatever seems to make the most people happy for the lowest cost.

I wouldn't make major decisions about my business without benchmarking other companies. Yet we seem to think we should run our health care system without trying to learn anything from anyone else.

I believe it comes down to my responsibility as a citizen. I don't believe I should be responsible for paying for my neighbor's heath care any more than I'm responsible for paying for their food, clothing or shelter. I'm not talking about paying temporarily for the neediest among us who need some short term help. I'm talking about people who have the means to pay for these things themselves. Currently, the majority of the "uninsured" CHOOSE to be uninsured. If someone has to make a choice between heath care coverage and a car or new clothes or going out to dinner, then they get no sympathy from me.

 

[maxiep]

BTW, don't think that us developing a socialized medicine program won't negatively affect Canadians. We're their outlet for when they can't get the care they need through their system.

 

[blazerboy30]

I've always thought it was pretty unfair that the rest of the world gets a cheap ride on our largess. Our ridiculous spending subsidizes innovation that the rest of the industrialized world benefits from without having to pay.

I don't know how you change that paradigm, but it seems to me there's got to be a better system than just letting America pick up the tab for most of the world's health care innovation. (It's kind of similar to how we pick up the tab for much of the world military policing activity.)

Maybe if we actually managed to control costs in the US, it'd force other countries to invest more? *shrug*

I don't know that I would consider it "unfair". I actually think it is great that we get to have that huge economy in our system.

Sure, it might make our premiums higher, but without the incentive to innovate and the greatest economy this world has ever seen (which the healthcare sector plays a large part of) people all over the world would be a lot worse off when it came to "healthcare". We'd still be resorting to using leaches.