In both Canada and the United States, access can be a problem. Studies show that 7% of U.S. citizens have inadequate or no health insurance. In Canada, 5% of Canadian citizens could not find a regular doctor, and another 9% have never looked for one. Nevertheless, even if some cannot find a family doctor, every Canadian citizen is covered by the national health care system. The U.S. figures are confirmed by a 2007 Consumer Reports study of the U.S. health care system, which found that the underinsured make up 4% of the U.S. population and have skeletal health insurance that barely covers their medical needs and leaves them unprepared to pay for major medical care. medical costs. When added to the uninsured (about 6% of the U.S. population), a total of 9% of Americans aged 18-64 have inadequate access to health care, according to Consumer Reports. Canadian data are from the 2003 Canadian Health Interview Survey.
In the U.S., the federal government does not guarantee universal health care to all of its citizens, but health care funded programs help provide for the elderly, disabled, poor, and children. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Childbirth Act or EMTALA also provides public access to Emergency Services. The EMTALA law forces emergency medical care providers to stabilize a health crisis and cannot deny treatment for lack of proof of insurance coverage or other proof of ability to pay. EMTALA does not relieve the person receiving emergency medical care from the obligation to cover emergency medical care that was not paid for at the time, and the hospital still has the right to pursue any debtor for the cost of the emergency care provided. In Canada, emergency room treatment for legal residents of Canada is not paid for by the patient at the time the service is provided, but is paid for by the government.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 59.3 percent of U.S. citizens have health insurance as it relates to employment, 27.8 percent have public health insurance; nearly 9 percent purchase health insurance directly (there is some overlap in these numbers), and 15.3 percent (45.7 million) were uninsured in 2007. About 25 percent of the uninsured are eligible for government programs but are not enrolled. About one-third of the uninsured live in families earning more than $50,000 a year. A 2003 Congressional Budget Office report showed that many people are uninsured only temporarily, such as after leaving one employer and before a new job. The number of chronically uninsured (uninsured for the entire year) was estimated in 1998 to be between 21 and 31 million people. Another study by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured found that 59 percent of uninsured adults had been uninsured for at least two years. One indicator of the effects of inconsistent health care coverage on Americans is a study by Health Affairs that concluded that half of personal bankruptcies are related to medical bills. Although other sources dispute this, It is possible that medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.
Number clinics provide free or low-cost non-emergency care to poor uninsured patients. The National Association of Free Clinics states that its member clinics provide $3 billion in services annually to about 3.5 million patients.
A peer-reviewed comparative study of access to health care in the two countries, published in 2006, found that U.S. residents are one-third less likely to have a regular doctor (80% versus 85%), one-quarter more likely to have unmet health care needs (13% versus 11%), and more than twice as likely to refuse needed medications (1.7% versus 2.6%). The study notes that access problems were “particularly acute for the uninsured U.S. Those without insurance in the U.S. were much less satisfied, less likely to see a doctor, and more likely not to get the care they wanted than Canadians and insured Americans.
Another cross-country study compared access to health care based on immigrant status in Canada and the United States. The results showed that immigrants in both countries had worse access to health care than nonimmigrants.
