In Sweden, patients usually pay a nominal fee for family doctor appointments.
cost-sharing
The French health-care system features several safety nets to protect vulnerable patients.
Outpatient pharmaceuticals in Belgium are usually partially reimbursed through a third-party payer scheme.
Australian patients can choose to be treated in hospital as either a public or private patient.
Canada ranked last on the timeliness of both specialist and elective surgical care.
In most universal health-care systems, patients share the cost of care through deductibles, co-insurance and co-payments.
The vast majority of universal health-care systems worldwide employ some form of cost-sharing.
Hospitals in Switzerland compete with one another for patients.
The Fraser Institute’s most recent wait times report finds that wait times (GP to treatment) have almost doubled since 1993.
It’s likely no coincidence that countries with cost-sharing programs in place have waiting times that are significantly shorter than those in Canada.