Health-care on a weight scale: Great britain, Canada, and United States - Essay Example

It will be argued that while there are good moral reasons to want to adopt a public health care system as they have in Canada, it is the economic reasons that are the most compelling. The Canadian system is both more humane or just, but more importantly, more cost-effective. Gross Domestic Product is one of the most general measures used among economic indicators, and is particular to the net wealth generated in the area of goods and services. Specifically, GDP is: GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports ? imports)..

As a measure that indicates the total output for goods and services, it is useful particularly when comparing economies for a particular period or interval of time. As a benchmark or measure, it also lends itself as being a constant for the determination of value for many different goods. Expenditures on 'health care' is one of these. The United States pays the very highest proportionate to their GDP on health care. Moreover, health care in the United States has represented a higher proportion of GDP in the US over many years that this indicator has been measured.

In comparison with Canada, the US spends a higher portion of their GDP by almost twice as many percentage points. That is, the private health care in the United States is roughly twice the percentage rate as Canada and moreover, the gross amount is staggering: “have risen to $2.5 trillion in 2009, or 17.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product” which is expected to rise to “19” percent [Norman, 2010, p. 1]. That the US is more inefficient, or just more costly, is what the following analysis will be focused on.

This analysis will attempt to address the main differences, and also the main positives and negatives, of the Canadian health care system as compared and contrasted with that of the US. The question that this analysis will answer asks, how is it that a 'public system' can be more cost efficient than a 'private system', and what are the outcomes or quality of care discernible between both systems? If President Obama is remembered as a divisive leader, unquestionably health care reform will be at the very top of the list of areas associated with him that has evoked much public outcry.

The debate over the first wave of reforms introduced by Obama, hit a number of low points, particularly when certain politicians intentionally mislead Americans by making up Canadian medical 'death committee's', and second, when certain politicians began to couch the issue as one of capitalism versus communism or socialism. The issue of 'death committee's' faded away because it was factually false, but the ideological issue is one that has persisted. It is arguably one that touches on some wider issues than just the type of care or system that is being proposed.

It is an ideological divide. However, one can challenge whether it really is ideological or an issue of socialism versus capitalism, with the articulation and outline of a fairly straight forward analogy: while most Americans agree that the fire department, education system and passport office – among others, should be a services that are shouldered or financed by the tax-payer, they do not all agree that health care should be likewise funded a basically similar way. It is not a public option, so to speak.

Likewise, the service