The Truth About Canada Read Online Free PDF Page A

other OECD countries. Mexico and Poland are at the bottom of both lists. 24 In one study, 51 percent of Canadian physicians reported patients facing long waits for diagnostic tests, compared to only 6 percent in Australia.
    Can we afford more MRIs? Or perhaps a better question is to ask how is it that we have done so poorly compared to other countries in acquiring such vitally important diagnostic aids? For some answers, see the chapter on taxes in this book.
    EXPENDITURES ON PHARMACEUTICALS
    Spending on pharmaceuticals has risen dramatically in recent years in OECD countries. Only in Iceland, Greece, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, and Japan has it declined as a share of total health expenditures (from 1997 to 2007). During these years, pharmaceutical spending in Canada in real terms grew at an annual rate of 6.9 percent. In comparison, in the United States during the same period, pharmaceutical spending grew by an average of 9.5 percent per year. The OECD comparative figure was 5.6 percent.
    Among OECD nations, Canada is the third highest per-capita pharmaceutical spender and ninth highest when such spending is measured as a percentage of total health spending. Twenty years ago, drug costs made up about 9.5 percent of our healthcare costs. Today, it’s about 17 percent. Bulk buying, as is done by countries such as New Zealand, would help reduce our current $25-billion drug costs substantially, but our politicians can’t seem to move on what would certainly be an important cost-saving program. In Canada, total personal expenditures on medical and health services amounted to $40.68-billion in 2005, of which just over $15-billion was for drugs and pharmaceutical products. The Canadian Institute for Health Information says,
The category of drugs ranks second after hospitals in terms of its share of total health expenditures. In 1997, expenditure on drugs overtook spending on physician services. The share of total spending accounted for by drugs grew from a low of 8.4 percent in the late 1970s, to 16.6 percent in 2004. In 2007, drugs are ranked second with a share of 17 percent of total health expenditures.
    Overall, where do public healthcare dollars go in Canada? In 2006, 30 percent went to hospitals and 9.6 percent went to other healthcare institutions. Some 13 percent went to physicians, 11 percent to other healthcare professionals, and about 15.9 percent went for capital costs, public health costs, and administration. The share spent on health research was 1.6 percent. 25
    SMOKERS
    The World Health Organization says that tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world and is directly responsible for about one in ten adult deaths worldwide, or about five million deaths each year.
    Canada has the lowest percentage of OECD adults smoking tobacco daily, some 17 percent, followed by the United States and Sweden at 18 percent. Ten other countries are below the OECD average of 26 percent. The countries with the worst records are Greece, at 35 percent, Hungary, 34 percent, Luxembourg, 33 percent, and 12 other countries, including Bulgaria, Japan, Spain, Russian, and Ukraine. 26
    In many countries, there is a large gender difference. For example, the rate of smokers is 63 percent of men in Korea and only 5 percent of women. In Canada the percentage of men who smoke fell from just under 44 percent in 1981 to 22 percent in 2005, and for women from 32 percent down to 16 percent in 2005 during the same years. Only 1 percent of the women in Cuba smoke and only 17 percent of the men. In Japan, only 15 percent of the women smoke, but 47 percent of the men do. Inthe United States, 19 percent of the women still smoke and 24 percent of the men.
    Canada has the highest percentage of people in the industrialized world using marijuana on a regular basis, more than four times the global rate. Of Canadians aged 15 to 64, 16.8 percent smoked marijuana or used other cannabis products in 2004. The number of Canadians using marijuana doubled