With the conclusion of the first ministers' meeting on health care, politicians across the country are busy patting themselves on the back to the point of getting repetitive strain injury. It is good that the federal government is moving to restore the funding gap it created, but what happens if the provinces use the money for other priorities? The answer is not much. Outside the conference, the media provided an opportunity for everyone with an axe to grind to advocate their solution on what ails health care in Canada; as usual, opinions and media stories were not necessarily encumbered by information. In the background of calls for or against more private funding, most Canadians would probably be surprised to learn that private funding (out of pocket or insurance) of health care in Canada has increased from 23.8% in 1975 to 30.1% in 2003. That is primarily because of private payments for drugs and for a host of professionals, from dentists to chiropractors and physiotherapists. For all of Canada in 2001, drugs accounted for 15.7% of health spending, doctors for 13.2%.

As background to the conference, Global TV aired a series of programs that reviewed some European health systems. Germany and France were presented as having no wait lists; Holland was presented as having a less expensive system. It is difficult to find information to verify assertions made in the TV series, but the World Health Organization (WHO) provides very useful background information on "core health indicators". The WHO data on Canada shows that health spending in 2001 was 9.5% of GDP; 29.2% of Canadian health spending was private in that year. The official source of health information in Canada is the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Its tables are consistent with (and are probably the source for) the WHO data. They add projections for 2002 and 2003 which show total health spending as a percentage of GDP increasing to 10% in 2003.

The following table summarizes some of WHO's key indicators for 2001. The table shows that although the United States spends the most it has the worst outcomes. The United Kingdom spends the least; its outcomes are worse than Canada's but not much different than Holland. There is an enormous amount of information available on alternative health systems; none of it shows a model that all would agree is superior to Canada's. There are no doubt lessons to learn from abroad, but not a wholesale system to import.