CANADIAN AND THE U.S HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS COMPARED

A study by June O'Neill and Dave M. O'Neill (link) suggests that the U.S health care system provides more choice, efficiency, better delivery and capacity than the Canadian system:

"Does Canada's publicly funded, single payer health care system deliver better health outcomes and distribute health resources more equitably than the multi-payer heavily private U.S. system? We show that the efficacy of health care systems cannot be usefully evaluated by comparisons of infant mortality and life expectancy. We analyze several alternative measures of health status using JCUSH (The Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health) and other surveys. We find a somewhat higher incidence of chronic health conditions in the U.S. than in Canada but somewhat greater U.S. access to treatment for these conditions. Moreover, a significantly higher percentage of U.S. women and men are screened for major forms of cancer. Although health status, measured in various ways is similar in both countries, mortality/incidence ratios for various cancers tend to be higher in Canada. The need to ration resources in Canada, where care is delivered "free", ultimately leads to long waits. In the U.S., costs are more often a source of unmet needs. We also find that Canada has no more abolished the tendency for health status to improve with income than have other countries. Indeed, the health-income gradient is slightly steeper in Canada than it is in the U.S."

LOWER CORPORATE TAX RATE IN ONTARIO

Chris Edwards, an economist at the Cato Institute, reports that Tim Horton's (Canada's "Starbucks") is moving its headquarters to Ontario, as the provincial policymakers are cutting the federal-provincial corporate tax rate down to 25 percent (link). That is 15 percentage points lower than the federal corporate tax rate in the U.S.

CANADA: CUTTING TAXES TO BOOST ECONOMIC SOVEREIGNITY

There is a good news coming from Canada. When Liberal Party was in power, it slashed the federal corporate tax rate from 28 percent to 19 percent. Stephane Dion, party's leader, seemingly understands the benefits of lower corporate tax rate for Canada's international competitiveness (link):

"A lower corporate tax rate is a powerful weapon in the federal government's arsenal to generate more investment, higher living standards and better jobs. If you lower the corporate tax rate, you lower the cost of capital for Canadian companies. Therefore, these companies are induced to spend more on capital equipment. As for foreign investment, we need a big hook to snare investment, including Canadian investment, that might otherwise go south of the border."

Delivering the speech on Tuesday, Canada0s Governor general, Michaelle Jean outline government's future intention to implement tax reform and re-enforce the intellectual property rights (link)