Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> wrote:

Canada has the world's second most expensive system (after ours) and I think is a bit closer to 80% of our per cap expenditures. [...] Canadian costs have risen at approx the same rate as ours.

Thanks for the figures and historical background. I'll keep trying to verify the figures I cited, but I see no reason to disagree with you.

Interestingly, even though government expenditures here are 60% of the total, per cap government expenditures on health care are higher here than in the UK under the Nattie Health.

This is a surprise. I guess it would also be an example.

Course Canada lost it when smuggling defeated the high tax levels on cigarettes. This will be more of a problem in the future as more efficient markets enable more smuggling.

At present, provinces west of Ontario have not dropped taxes, while Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick dropped them significantly (+50%). The drop had a predictably negative effect on the smuggling, although due to the rapid increase in smoking rates among adolescents pressure is mounting to increase the taxes again. Most systems have undesired side-effects (e.g. remailers and spam). But if you can keep second order effects from becoming first order, you're heading in the desired direction. Ciao, James