[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/devereux.jpg” caption=”Dr. P. J. Devereaux, assistant professor of medicine. File photo. Dr. Gordon Guyatt (below), professor of medicine. Photo by Jason Jones.”]McMaster University researchers have found Canadians suffering from a wide range of serious illnesses fare at least as well if not better than their American counterparts, thanks to Canada's universal health care system.

Their research appears in the inaugural issue of the new online medical journal, Online Medicine, which was officially launched yesterday.

Leading a team of 17 Canadian and American researchers, the McMaster researchers discovered that American patients don't enjoy better health outcomes even though the United States for-profit health care system spends more than double per capita on health care — $7,129 per capita in the U.S. versus $2,956 (American dollars) in Canada.

Sifting from an initial 4,923 studies, the researchers analyzed 38 studies which met two specific criteria: The studies compared patients with identical diagnoses (cancer, heart attacks, chronic medical illnesses and surgical procedures) in Canada and the United States as well as health outcomes between patients in the two countries.

“The study shows in general that for most conditions, Canadians are actually doing better in terms of health outcomes compared to Americans with the same diagnosis, even though we are spending half the money,” said Dr. P. J. Devereaux, an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Medicine at McMaster and co-author of the study.

He added researchers found across all the studies that the survival rate among Canadians was five per cent better.

Given recent increased calls for private health care in Canada, Devereaux hopes this study will remind Canadians “it makes no sense to be paying double the money and have no better outcomes.”

Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Medicine at McMaster and the study's lead author, agreed.

“The study should be a wake-up call to Americans,” he says.

Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and another of the study's co-authors, said Americans are paying inflated prices for inferior health care.

“The extra $4,000 each American spends annually isn't buying us better quality. Most of it is pure waste, going for paperwork and insurance and drug company profits.”