In this paper we review and extend an earlier, in-depth analysis of the effects of users ccharges. The present paper assesses whether experience and published literature in the years since 1979 alter any of the (largely negative) conclusions of the earlier study concerning the ability of direct...

In this paper we examine some of the most frequently heard arguments for user charges and look at what evidence there is for claims and counter-claims that are often made.

In this paper we document the history of the user charges in the Canadian health care system.

In this paper we outline a formal and comprehensive analytic framework in which income transfers - the principal effects of user charges - can be traced between groups in the population, between payers and health care providers, and among providers.

"Medicare" has two meanings for Canadians: the entire range of health care services, or only those (mainly physicians and hospitals) mandated and governed by the Canada Health Act (CHA). This paper focuses on the narrower legal meaning of Medicare, as does the recent Alberta proposal to fund...

Call for user fees in Canadian health care go back as far as the debate leading up to the establishment of Canada's national hospital insurance program in the late 1950s. Although the rationales have shifted around somewhate, some of the more consistent claims have been that user fees are...

In this paper we propose a conplexe framework to present a wide range of relationships among the determinants of health.

The Major difference between the United States and Canada with respect to health expenditures lies in the degree of centralization of the cost control process.

The year 1981 appears, in retrospect, to have been something of a turning point in the evolution of the Canadian health care system. It was not obvious at the time -- the year did not, 1961 or 1971, mark the completion of a clearly defined stage of public coverage or, like 1978, a major shift in...

Illness increases with age. All else being equal, an older population has greater needs for health care. This logic has led to dire protections of skyrocketing costs - apocalyptic demography. Yet numerous studies have shown tha aging effects are relatively small, and all else is not equal. Cost...