A comparison Between the Health Care in Jordan and Canada

“A comparison between the health care in Jordan and Canada”
Abstract/ Summary
The Canadian health system is a publicly funded universal national health insurance program that is backed by the government. On the other hand, the Jordanian healthcare system financing is dependent on the utilization of public, private programs and designated donors. A cross-country comparison of healthcare captures the health and economic profiles between the two countries. In Canada, the ministers in the different regions oversee the healthcare system but there is coordination at the national level, while the Jordanian system is more fragmented since there are divers players involved in financing. Despite Canada emphasizing on universality there is a challenge because of long waiting lines and pressure contain costs. The healthcare system is meant to improve heath provision and ensure financial protection from escalating health costs and equitable access to healthcare services. As such, this is a comparison between the Canadian and Jordanian healthcare system. To assess the differences the latest publicly available data was used focusing the healthcare system, health indicators health expenditures and pharmaceutical industry outlook in the two countries. The citizens and permanent residents of Canada are automatically eligible for public health insurance, but refugees and temporary residents are considered under special circumstances. There are also restrictions for refugees in Jordan, but their share of the population is bigger. Growth prospects in the pharmaceutical industry have slowed down in Canada with the popularity of cheaper generics, with country mostly associated with the manufacture of branded drugs unlike Jordan. Even though, the government may distort the efficient allocation of health resources better coordination at the national level improves accessibility of health services for both countries, but more research is required to determine the effectiveness of the different approaches to funding healthcare insurance coverage.
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Introduction
The Canadian health system has a universal national health insurance program that is backed by the government. The health insurance system also follows a singular payer system with third parties providing for medical services, while the choice of physicians is unlimited (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). To control the costs of medical care physicians are paid through negotiated fees for the service provided, by three are limits to the medical expenditure over time. The main feature of the health system is the national health insurance provides for hospitalization and physicians services. Private insurance for covered services is not allowed, but private insurance is used for uncovered services (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012).The Jordanian healthcare system integrates the public and private sectors as well as donors, with the public sector being financed through the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Royal Medical Service (RMS), but there are other smaller programs initiated through university-based systems (WHO, 2006). Even though, the MOH is the main financier of health services, the insurance coverage is still not free and there is still a section of the Jordanian citizens who have no insurance health coverage. This paper compares the health care system in the Kingdom of Jordan and Canada.
Background/ literature review
Cross-country comparisons of healthcare systems focus on different aspects of health indicators, with quality of the analysis vital to make senses of differences in the policies and health indicators. The Canadian health system administration is divided between the provinces, territories and the federal government. At the federal level, the government mainly deals with health care, prescription drug regulation, financing administration as well safety. There is recognition that the First Nation people and members of the veterans are vulnerable, with the government them overseeing the health insurance coverage for these communities. Other than this is the government’s role in health care data collection, health research and public health (Marchildon, 2013).
The primary responsibility for financing and administration of the health care system is mainly at the provincial level. There are 10 provinces and 3territories in Canada, where coverage is provided for residents of these regions (Marchildon, 2013). This includes the organizations of the health services based on the RHAs, but there are differences in the scope of activities by the RHAs (Marchildon, 2013). The provincial ministers of health are also responsible for institutional, community care and hospital administration, w as well as the pharmaceutical coverage and physicians coverage. in cases where residents to do have access to public health insurance, the ministers then subsidize the cost of drug therapies targeting the poor and vulnerable groups for the poor and retirees. Even though, statements can practice privately they also deliver services that are publicly funded and paid by the ministers.
Ridic, Gleason & Ridic (2012) argue that the Canadian system demonstrates that the provision of ‘free’ products to clients also increases the demand for services and spending. There is also risk that there will be inefficient allocation of resources with the government then likely to increase the revenue or limit the services being provided. Products that are provided at the zero prices are then treated as zero resource costs, and the health plans have increasingly focused on limiting the range of services provided (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012). Despite the system being free in the case where there are major procedures required, there is a need to allocate the resources to cover for such services. The Canadian system ignores the free market forces, since the government has the authority to set the prices where there can be limits to investing in the medical technology (Ridic, Gleason & Ridic, 2012).
The amalgam of donors, public and health insurance financing the Jordan is complicated. This is because people who are eligible more than one health insurance coverage program, while paying for the private programs from out of pocket payments. Despite a third of the population having no access to formal healthcare insurance coverage, they are eligible for the highlight subsidized public program (WHO, 2006). The uninsured people pay the full price for the pharmaceuticals even when they enter the subsidized care under the ministry of health facilities. Since the private insurance programs are more flexible, their range of services covered by the health insurance is more variable (WHO, 2006). The government budgeting process has a direct impact on the financing of the public healthcare insurance programs on an annual basis. The financing is dependent on the general budgets, user fees and premium contributions, with subsidies mainly for the General Army Budget (WHO, 2006).
There are clear divisions between the public and private institutions in the Canadian healthcare system with the MoH administering over 27 hospitals and 1,245 primary health-care centers (Meyer-Reumann& Partners,n.d.). On the other hand the International and Charitable Sector has diverse institutions including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugee (UNRWA) that oversees more than 20 primary care centers and other special care clinics for the Palestinian refugees in Jordan. (Meyer-Reumann& Partners, n.d).The healthcare sector and charitable organization mainly supplement the public health services.
Canada was estimated to have a population of 35.09 million people in July 2015 compared to 8.11 million Jordan in the same year (CIA, 2015). However, Jordan had a larger share of refugees from neighboring countries like Iraq and Syria fleeing war, and this affected access to healthcare services for those who were not Jordanian citizens. The health laws in Jordan are more fragmented given the mix of healthcare service providers, and there has been increased recognition for a more cohesive framework to improve the healthcare industry (Business Monitor. Com, 2015).
Research objectives
The main goal of a healthcare system is to improve heath provision while responding to the peoples’ expectations and ensuring financial protection from the costs associated with ill health hence having quality health care is taken into account when assessing the viability of a health care system.
To compare Canadian and Jordanian healthcare system, including functioning of the systems and attempts to cover the uninsured people.
To highlight the impact of government’s role on the health system and market competition.
Research design and methods
The research designs focuses on the health indicators between the two countries from publicly available data specially information from the countries government, and the World Health Organization. The latest data was preferred, with the outcomes showing the differences thatdistinguish the healthcare system as well as the healthcare industry outlook in the two countries. However, there was less information on Jordan written in English. To further understand the effectiveness of the healthcare system, there is a need to highlight how the choice of insurance coverage affects availability of health services for citizens, permanent residents and refugees of Canada and Jordan. To frame the discussion on the comparison of the Canadian and Jordanian healthcare system, the context is necessary to describe the differences based on the demographic profiles, health insurance coverage plans as well as the health and economic indicators.
Drug funding decisions
Even though, the Canadian system is publicly funded, there were differences on how the provinces and territories integrated medications in the insurance programs. With the aim of avoiding duplication and standardizing procedures, the Common Drug Review (CDR) was established in 2002 with the aim of determining the prescription of medications (Clement et al., 2009). The CDR provided recommendations for newly listed drugs to be utilized in the publicly funded plans, with manufacturers submitting medications to the CDR. the professionals are then tasked with determining the safety and effectiveness of medications, and recommendations provided for the drug plan (Clement et al., 2009). On the other hand, the Drug funding decision in Jordan is through the public and private means with health expenditures accounting for 10% of the GDP (Lafi, Robinson & Williams, 2012). There have been propositions for the pharmaceutical industry to cover 30% of the healthcare expenditure (Lafi, Robinson & Williams, 2012). The Jordanian government has followed this model with the aim of purchasing cost-effective drugs, identifying thresholds on what is to be included or excluded as the cost-effective medications (Lafi, Robinson & Williams, 2012).
Statistics
The World Hea...