Health Care in Canada: Reforms and Government Reports

This essay provides an overview of the growth in the healthcare reforms of the Canadian government. It compares two government reports namely Kirby and Romanow Report in terms of health facilities, financing cost etc. The report also discusses the recommendations made by both the reports and their implementation.

Running head: HEALTH CARE IN CANADA
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HEALTH CARE IN CANADA

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Introduction
The health care system of Canada has gone through various reforms since last four decades.
According to G. Marchildon (2013) the health outflows come mostly from the taxreturns of
federal, provincial and territorial governments. The aim of this essay is to identify the
changes of the health-care facilities. Thus, the report aims to provide an overview of the
growth in the healthcare reforms of the Canadian government. It will also show the
comparison between two government reports namely Kirby and Romanow Report in terms of
health facilities, financing cost etc.
Health and Health care delivery in Canada
The Canadian health care system is carried mainly through publicly funded health care knows
as Medicare. This system was guided by the Canada Health Act of 1984. But as stated by
Hutchison (2013), 30% Canadian system is paid off by private sectors. Since the beginning of
2000 the government stated out new reforms on health care services, pharmaceuticals
administration, health related information and communications knowledge, and equipment
and infrastructure. As claimed by OECD in its report of 2011, Canada is doing well in
decreasing the cost of admission but its waiting time tends to be the longest specially to visit
any specialist or get any surgery.
Kirby Report
The Senate Committee led by Senator Micheal Kirby in 2002 released a report called The
Health of Canadians - The Federal Role. In this report the committee stressed on the necessity
for cooperation amongst the shareholders. Kirby suggested that the federals should work with
other parties to make a permanent national body for Human Health Resources (HHR). Its
mandates included distributing data on Human Resource requirements, promoting excellent
practices to train health care experts, suggesting strategies to increase Health care
professionals to rural regions (Marchildon, 2013).
Romanow Report
According to Roy Romanow the future of Canadian health care in 2002 known as Romanow
Report. The commissionordered to absorb Canadians on the future of heath care and states
recommendations to create a long-term sustainability of Canada's commonly accessible and
publicly sponsored health-care system (Lewis, 2013).

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Comparison between Kirby and Romanow report
The two major government reports of Canada that emphasises on the health-care facility of
Canada is said to be different from one another.
Funding a Sustainable Health system
The reports are said to hold two different position in funding of the health care system.
Romanow is said be a champion of public funding system and recommended in increase of
Medicare facilities(Hutchison, 2013).
Whereas the Kirby report which was more demanding and insightful, advocates the private
funding system. It argues about the scarcity of the resource and its appropriate allocation and
utilisation (Di Matteo, 2010).
Recommendations for Financing costly drugs
Romanow’s Medicare system planned to expand its boundaries beyond admission and
doctors’ visits. As he could see the cost of medication skyrocketing, he advised provisions
that covered the expanded drug cost (Morgan and Daw 2012). The reimbursement would be
50% of the cost of prescribed medication over an annual edge of $1,500 per patient. He
ultimately hopes that more drugs will be enclosed, deductibles will be reduced, and eligibility
extremity amended (Lewis,2013).
The Kirby report recommended that the private funding system would bear the additional
prescription drugs at 3% of the family income (Di Matteo, 2010).
Recommendations made about Financing the Electronic Health Record (EHR)
As maintaining a proper EHR would improve management, effectiveness and accountability
and would also improve the excellence and timeline of a patient.Whereas the data collected in
the EHR would be useful in health-related research work. Thus, the Kirby Report
recommended extra federal subsidy to Canada Health Infoway which is a private
establishment in charge of advancing the source of Electronic Health Record. This report
offers around $2 billion over 5-year period (Greiver, 2011)
Romanows report one of the major recommendations was to generate a personal Electronic
Health Record for every Canadian (Greiver, 2011)

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Recommendations made for improving the health of Canadians
Morgan and Daw (2012)stated the degenerating health conditions of the Canadian public. In
order to overcome this condition, health programmes and proper infrastructural development
has to be introduced. Low and varying funding is the making the health agendas and
infrastructure into a lot of stress. To overcome these stresses the Senate in his Kirby Report
suggested additional funding of $200 million to endure, harmonize and assimilate these
public health condition in Canada.
The Romanow report recommended the health care system and advocated for the
development of health promotions and inhibitions from disease and injury, health-related
information and technological advancement, human resource applications and health
research. They also emphasised on the improvement in accessibility over rural areas. The
reports key element was to establish Health Council of Canada whose prime focus would be
to monitor, access and report on the performances of the health care facilities (Morgan&
Daw, 2012).
Recommendations that have been implemented
There were many recommendations adopted by both the governments, but some were
implemented while the others lost its way.
The First Ministers in 2003 convened in Ottawa and in his accord, he agreed to establish $16
billion in Health Reform Fund to bear the development in primary care, home care and
catastrophic drugs. He also agreed to a slight increase in contribution through Canadian
HealthTransfer and to elevate funding for Canadian public health measures. A secure health
funding commitment was laid out by the central government till 2010-11. The growth of
funding was seen at 6.5% per year over 8-year period(Hutchison, 2013).
As a response for Romanow Report, the government initiated a transfer for health care
substantially from general revenue. Ottawa has up surged its transfer over the next 8 years at
a significant rate. As stated by Romanowsome of the requirements of the agreement went
ahead what wassuggested. Billions of dollars were kept aside that aimed at plummeting the
extant of time patients had to wait forvarious procedures (Lewis, 2013).

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Conclusions
Thus, to conclude the health care system and various reforms that has been initiated has a
been a failure. There has been implementations of various recommendation and improvement
has also occurred. But the advancements should be a part of the ongoing development rather
making it as a fundamental reform. The reports also have its drawbacks as the Romanow
report does not clearly lays out the facts on fiscal sustainability and confuses the public and
the government. Both the Romanow and Kirby reforms failed to understand and address the
changing nature of the fiscal sustainability problems.

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Reference List
Di Matteo, L. (2010). The sustainability of public health expenditures: evidence from the
Canadian federation. The European Journal of Health Economics, 11(6), 569-584.
Greiver, M. (2011). Implementation of Electronic Medical Records and preventive services: a
mixed methods study (Doctoral dissertation).
Hutchison, B. (2013). Reforming Canadian primary care–Don't stop half-way. Healthcare
Policy, 9(1), 12.
Kitchen, P., Williams, A., Pong, R. W., & Wilson, D. (2011). Socio-spatial patterns of home
care use in Ontario, Canada: a case study. Health & place, 17(1), 195-206.
Lewis, S. (2013). Discussion Paper: Canadian Health Policy Since Romanow: Easy to Call
for Change, Hard to Do. Monieson Centre for Business Research in Healthcare, Queen's
University.
Marchildon, G. (2013). Canada: health system review. Health systems in transition, 15(1), 1-
179.
Morgan, S. G., & Daw, J. R. (2012). Canadian pharmacare: looking back, looking
forward. Healthcare Policy, 8(1), 14.