Int J Health Serv
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Over the past decade the Canadian drug approval system has come under intensive scrutiny, with the greatest amount of attention being given to the length of time required to approve new drugs. This issue has obviously also been of considerable interest to the pharmaceutical industry, and the question arises as to whether or not the concerns of the industry may be driving the proposed reforms to speed up the approval process. Both industry and government maintain that quicker approval of new drugs will ensure that Canadians have more rapid access to new medications without sacrificing safety. ⋯ There is also evidence that safety may be compromised with faster approvals. Industry does not need quicker approval times for its financial viability, but getting new, more expensive drugs onto the market more rapidly will increase sales and profit levels. Alternative approaches to dealing with problems such as drug approval times will only be possible when the policy-making process becomes more transparent and open.
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A World Bank report on the health sector in India has set out to offer an alternative policy framework to cushion the impact of structural adjustment programs on health services. By choosing health financing as a tool for policy analysis, it has arrived at highly questionable conclusions.
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England and Sweden have two of the most advanced systems of universal access to health care in the world. Both have begun major reforms based on similar principles. ⋯ The reforms therefore show a movement toward the kind of approach advocated by some in the United States. This article traces the origins and early results of the two countries' reform efforts.
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Comparative Study
An economist's brief guide to the recent debate on the Canadian health care system.
The purported advantages of the Canadian system of health insurance over the U. S. health care system have recently been questioned by a number of economists. These criticisms have in turn engendered a response by other economists who believe that the evidence supports the cost and coverage advantages of the Canadian system. The authors provide an overview of this recent debate.
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Comparative Study
Further refinements of Canadian/U.S. health cost containment measures.
Critics of the Canadian health care system have argued that the lower health care share of gross national product (GNP) in Canada relative to the United States is more likely to be associated with a relatively more rapid growth in GNP in Canada than with the ability of the Canadian single-payer system to contain costs. In this article the authors use both the level and the average annual growth rate of health care's share of GNP to provide an assessment of cost containment for the United States and Canada. They conclude that the suggestion that the success of the Canadian system has been an illusion created by its more rapid growth in GNP is not supported once the appropriate adjustments are made to the data.