Evaluating Claims About The System
Evaluating the accuracy of claims about the system is hampered by several factors. The highly decentralized nature of health care delivery means that good data is not always available. It is often difficult to distinguish compelling but atypical anecdotes from systemic problems. Considerable effort is being made to develop and implement comparable indicators to allow better assessment of progress. However, the Health Council of Canada — with a mandate to monitor and report on health reform — complained in 2007 that progress has stalled.
The debate about health care has also become heavily ideological. The Fraser Institute, a think tank supporting "competitive market solutions for public policy problems" is a frequent critic of medicare. It publishes yearly reports about wait times which are then used to argue that the system is both failing and unsustainable. Others criticize their methodology, which is based on physician perceptions rather than actual waits. Other complaints come from the political left, who object to 'privatization' (by which they usually mean a heavier involvement of for-profit providers). (See, for example, the Canadian Health Coalition web page. There are frequent debates in the media and on line between advocates and opponents of Canadian healthcare.
Read more about this topic: Medicare (Canada)
Famous quotes containing the words evaluating, claims and/or system:
“Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.”
—Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
“It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union.... I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.”
—Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940)