title: Making health spending work.
abstract: Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) are usually promoted as a demand-management tool that gives consumers incentives to economize on medical expenses. "Making Health Spending Work" takes the concept one step further and shows how MSAs can be used to design a publicly funded system that incorporates market dynamics. MSAs can bring efficiency-enhancing incentives to the supply side, creating consumer choice and empowerment with a public system that meets Medicare's key principles. Over the last few months, Canada's political leaders have begun to break away from the reform-stalling tactics of special interest groups - which profit mightily from the the current system - and to examine sensible reforms that could benefit all Canadians. By breaking free of old dogmas, Canada can turn myth into reality: we can have the best medicare system in the world, one that expands choice and creates efficiency-enhancing dynamics.
authors.affiliation: Director Centre for Globalization Studies, Fraser Institute, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Fred
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zelder
mesh_terms: D000416:Alberta; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D020402:Medical Savings Accounts; D009313:National Health Programs / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011639:Public Opinion; D011787:Quality of Health Care