According to a recent report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which examined 2.4 million recorded hospital stays (outside of Quebec), an average patient stay in Canada costs almost $7,000. The study also concluded that underlying chronic conditions or their complications account for almost 30% of money spent on inpatient care in Canadian acute care hospitals.

As American and European regulators make strides in encouraging innovation and improving access to treatments for patients with rare disorders, Canada lags farther behind.

Canadian consumers continue to pay high prices for generic drugs according to a recent report by the Competition Bureau. Generic drug manufacturers vying for shelf space in pharmacies often offer deep rebates to pharmacies as incentives to select a particular manufacturer's product. These rebates are not typically reflected in amounts paid for drugs by public or private drug plans, or out of pocket by consumers.

New medicines that treat or prevent disease have contributed significantly to declining hospitalization rates and better health outcomes in Canada. Rather than laud the role that health technology innovation has played in improving both the cost-effectiveness and quality of health care, policy makers and health industry critics in Canada have claimed that access to new drug therapies should be constrained because drugs have been the fastest growing component of health care spending in Canada. Canadian national health expenditure data refutes that claim.

Au cours des cinq dernières années, le taux comparatif de mortalité au Canada est passé de 180,4 à 173,7 par tranche de 100 000 personnes, soit une amélioration de 3,7 %. Cependant, durant cette même période, le taux de mortalité aux États-Unis a connu une amélioration deux fois plus élevée, connaissant une baisse de 7,5 %.