A supporter of medicare says a report released Monday by the Fraser Institute is a veiled attempt to promote private health care run for profit.

The report, How Good is Canadian Health Care? An International Comparison of Health Care Systems, says that Canada spends more on health care than most other industrialized countries while Canadians get poor access to doctors and services.

Dr. Avalon Roberts, spokesperson for Friends of Medicare, dismissed the report, saying it is an attempt to promote the idea that Canada would be better off with private health-care services.

"With the Fraser Institute what we see every year is the same old, same old — always an effort to push private, for-profit health care."

When spending is adjusted for populations of different age, the report says, Canada shells out more on health care than any other country in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development except Iceland.

The report says close to half of all money spent on health care in Canada covers services for people aged 65 and over, who make up only 13 per cent of the population.

"We're spending an awful lot of money on health care but we're not getting the value we should be seeing out of that money," said Nadeem Esmail, director of health system performance at the Fraser Institute and co-author of the study.

Were Canada to allow patients to pay for a portion of the health care services they receive, the report argues, the system would improve in its delivery.

"We have a choice between what we have now and a better way," said Esmail.

"The better way does mean introducing private competition into provision and finance of health care and introducing cost-sharing."

Canada differs from most other industrialized countries in its delivery of health-care services because it has no user fees and it is the only country that outlaws privately funded purchases of major health services, the report says.

The United States and Mexico were not included in the study because they do not have publicly funded systems with universal access.

The report ranks Canada according to various criteria, including:

• Doctors per capita — Canada ranks 24th out of 28 countries with 2.3 doctors per 1,000 people.
• Access to technology — Canada ranks 13th out of 24 countries in access to MRIs, and 17th out of 23 in access to CT scanners.
• Infant mortality — Canada ranks 21st.
• Years of life lost to disease — Canada ranks ninth.

Friends of Medicare's Roberts said the solution to the problem lies in making intelligent choices given the funding available.

"There is no system that is 100 per cent perfect. And certainly if you look south of the border, you see 50 million people practically without any health care insurance," he said.

The Fraser Institute, which describes itself as an independent research organization, has offices in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.