U.S. healthcare costs are double Canada's

MONTREAL, Jul 18, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A comparison of Canadian and U.S. surgery costs suggests Canada's single-payer system is more efficient, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported Monday.

The research of hospital costs found heart-bypass surgery costs an average $10,373 in Canada, compared with $20,673 in the United States, the newspaper said.

"The conventional wisdom is that healthcare is much more expensive in the United States and the conventional wisdom is right," said Dr. Mark Eisenberg, head of cardiovascular epidemiology at Jewish General Hospital in Montreal.

"All this extra technology, all this extra spending, does not lead to improved survival," Eisenberg told the Globe and Mail, noting the rate of post-surgical complications is about the same in both nations, despite the significantly higher U.S. costs.

"It's striking how much more everything costs (in the United States): Gauze pads cost twice as much; stents cost twice as much," Eisenberg said, noting, for example, in the United States it costs $1.56 to deliver an acetylsalicylic acid pill (aspirin) to a bypass patient, while it costs 97 cents in Canada.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked only at the cost of surgery, not appropriateness of treatment.