Thursday, June 12, 2025
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
        • Provincial COVID Misery Index
        • Beyond Lockdown
        • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
        • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
        • Provincial COVID Misery Index
        • Beyond Lockdown
        • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
        • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Injecting more choice for Canadians on health care: MLI paper by Mark Ronayne and Richard Audas

November 22, 2016
in Domestic Policy, Health care - papers, Latest News, Papers, Health, Releases
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A

mlihealthcareseries7-774x427-11-16

Greater competition – not more money – can help fix an expensive and underperforming health care system

OTTAWA, Nov. 22, 2016 – A little competition can be a good thing, particularly when it comes to Canadian health care.

A new paper from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute makes the case for using competition to improve an expensive and underperforming system so it works better for patients and costs less for Canadians.

“With the strains on the Canadian health care system showing as much as ever, injecting a little healthy competition into medicare should be part of the conversation around needed reforms”, write the authors, Mark Ronayne and Dr. Richard Audas.

healthcarecompetitioncoverThe authors find that measures to create competition in the provision of health services can lead to improved patient choice, better clinical outcomes, greater access to care, and improved efficiency and productivity.

To read the full paper, titled “Injecting Some Healthy Competition Into Canadian Health Care”, click here.

While there are myriad opportunities for more competition in the health cares system, Ronayne and Audas concentrate on two key areas: hospitals and health professions. Together they combine to make up 54 percent of health care expenditures in Canada. But patients know little about the quality of services they provide, and so they cannot make an informed choice between providers. This needs to change, write Ronayne and Audas.

The United Kingdom provides an example of how increased competition among hospitals can make life better for patients. In 2006, the Labour government implemented a system whereby all referrals to hospital had to be accompanied with a choice of five options where individuals could have the service performed with the full cost being borne by the National Health Service, and the funding for the procedure following the individual. Patients could examine key performance metrics, as well as how long it would take before the procedure could be conducted, before making a decision.

“With the strains on the Canadian health care system showing as much as ever, injecting a little healthy competition into medicare should be part of the conversation around needed reforms” -Mark Ronayne and Dr. Richard Audas.

So if you prefer a short wait time for example, but are prepared to travel farther, you can choose to do so. This also means that high performing hospitals are financially rewarded. And it creates transparent performance standards that each patient can assess and evaluate to determine the facility that will provide the best-suited care for them. And most importantly, studies found that mortality declined, without increasing costs.

A shift toward “activity based funding”, or funding based on the procedures performed, in Canadian hospitals could facilitate this kind of competition.

There is also room for injecting more competition among health-care providers.

As technology and techniques improve, midwives, nurse practitioners and other health professionals can increasingly provide an equal or better service to doctors at significantly lower rates.

“Allowing different professional groups a greater opportunity to compete would encourage innovation and should result in as-good-to-better outcomes at a considerable cost savings”, write the authors.The keys to opening up competition between providers include ensuring regulatory bodies promote the interests of society rather than those of the professions, and ensuring provincial legislation allows for other qualified professionals to perform more tasks traditionally performed by doctors.

Finally, Canadian patients are woefully underserved when it comes to receiving information about the performance of hospitals and physicians. If patients are going to make health care providers compete for their business, they will need to be armed with the most up to date data on quality and access to care.

“Patients should demand more information and greater choice in their care,” write Audas and Ronayne. “And hospitals and providers shouldn’t be afraid of a little healthy competition.”

***

Mark Ronayne is an independent analyst and consultant on competition policy and law matters. He is a former Senior Competition Law Officer with the Canadian Competition Bureau.

Richard Audas, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Health Statistics and Economics at the Memorial University, Faculty of Medicine.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is the only non-partisan, independent national public policy think tank in Ottawa focusing on the full range of issues that fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

For more information, please contact Mark Brownlee, communications manager, at 613-482-8327 x105 or email at mark.brownlee@macdonaldlaurier.ca.

Tags: health care

Related Posts

Mixed fleet of fighter jets not the answer for Canada’s Air Force: Alexander Lanoszka, Richard Shimooka and Balkan Devlen in the National Post
National Defence

Mixed fleet of fighter jets not the answer for Canada’s Air Force: Alexander Lanoszka, Richard Shimooka and Balkan Devlen in the National Post

June 11, 2025
The future of the Canadian Armed Forces under Carney: Andrew Leslie on The Hub Podcast
National Defence

The future of the Canadian Armed Forces under Carney: Andrew Leslie on The Hub Podcast

June 10, 2025
Carney’s military pledge — what it buys, and what it costs: Christian Leuprecht on The Line Podcast
National Defence

Carney’s military pledge — what it buys, and what it costs: Christian Leuprecht on The Line Podcast

June 10, 2025
Next Post
Christian Leuprecht

Canada needs to hope the US political system will temper Trump's worst excesses: Christian Leuprecht in Sun papers

Newsletter Signup

  Thank you for Signing Up
  Please correct the marked field(s) below.
Email Address  *
1,true,6,Contact Email,2
First Name *
1,true,1,First Name,2
Last Name *
1,true,1,Last Name,2
*
*Required Fields

Follow us on

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

  • Inside Policy Magazine
  • Annual Reports
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
  • Experts
    • Experts Directory
    • In Memoriam
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy
      • Economic Policy
      • Justice
      • Rights and Freedoms
      • Assisted Suicide (MAID)
      • Health Care
      • COVID-19
      • Gender Identity
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • AI, Technology and Innovation
      • Media and Telecoms
      • Housing
      • Immigration
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Competition Policy
    • Energy Policy
      • Energy
      • Environment
    • Foreign Policy
      • Israel-Hamas War
      • Ukraine
      • Taiwan
      • China
      • Europe and Russia
      • Indo-Pacific
      • Middle East and North Africa
      • North America
      • Foreign Interference
      • National Defence
      • National Security
      • Foreign Affairs
    • Indigenous Affairs
  • Projects
    • CNAPS (Center for North American Prosperity and Security)
    • The Promised Land
    • Voices that Inspire: The Macdonald-Laurier Vancouver Speaker Series
    • Dragon at the Door
    • Canada on top of the world
    • Justice Report Card
    • The Great Energy Crisis
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • Double Trouble
    • Digital Policy & Connectivity
    • Managing Indigenous Prosperity
    • Defending The Marketplace of Ideas
    • Reforming the University
    • Past Projects
      • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
      • The Transatlantic Program
      • COVID Misery Index
      • Speak for Ourselves
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
      • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
      • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
      • Straight Talk
      • Labour Market Report
      • Leading Economic Indicator
      • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Inside Policy
  • Libraries
    • Columns
    • Commentary
    • Papers
    • Books
    • Video

© 2023 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

Lightbox image placeholder

Previous Slide

Next Slide

Share

Facebook ShareTwitter ShareLinkedin SharePinterest ShareEmail Share

TwitterTwitter
Hide Tweet (admin)

Add this ID to the plugin's Hide Specific Tweets setting: