Canadian Aboriginal Healthcare Situation Health, Medicine Essay

Canadian Aboriginal Healthcare Situation
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Canadian Aboriginal Healthcare Situation
Introduction
According to the 2017 Commonwealth Fund Report, Canada’s health system was ranked 9th out of 11 high-income countries in the world (McAlister, Cram, & Bell, 2018). Based on the five domains that make up the ranking (administrative efficiency, outcomes, equity, care process, and access), Canada's poor ranking emanated from problems in equity and access. The report further suggests that Canada's poor ranking in the two domains was driven by the cost of drugs and dental care. 30% reported difficulties in affording drugs, while 28% had skipped routine dental care in the past year due to cost. In the ‘care process domain, Canada’s ranking suffered because of the lack of digital health records in primary care practices (Gagnon et al., 2016). The two underperforming domains suggest a level of inequality in the Canadian Health System, especially for low-income and minority groups such as the Aboriginals. Therefore, changes in the system are necessary for sustainability.
Canadian Health System
In Canada, healthcare (Medicare) is publicly funded through territorial and provincial systems across the country. The country's Medicare is responsible for medical expenses of 70% of Canadians, while the private sector covers the rest (30%). The 30% is related to some of the services that are not covered under Medicaid, such as dentistry, prescription drugs, and optometry. About 75% of Canadians have supplementary health insurance that covers some or all of these exceptions under Medicaid (Kassam, 2017). Therefore, the implication for low-income Canadians who have little or no access to supplementary insurance must pay for these services out of their pockets. For this section of the population, access to dental services, and prescription drugs remains a significant problem in the 21st century. Therefore, it implies that a significant number of Canadians have no access to some of these services.
According to the Canada Health Act, public healthcare insurance is designed to ensure that Canadian citizens have access to insured health care services on a pre-paid basis (Fernandes & Spencer, 2020). In essence, the system prevents eligible residents from incurring direct charges at the point of services. The act covers all medically necessary physician and hospital services with provisions applying to long-term care, such as care for the elderly in nursing homes. While the federal governments provide some of the funding as well as legislation, provinces have the freedom to tailor their needs with unprecedented changes in Medicare. Thus, while the healthcare system is the same throughout the country, there are variations among provinces.
In this system, the cost of prescription drugs and dental services is a key concern, especially for low-income and minority groups. Canadians spend over $12 billion annually on dental services (CBC, 2018). Despite this, the Canadian Life and Health insurance Association reports that 25 million Canadians (80% of working families) have extended health insurance that caters for prescriptions, dental servi...