Who's to blame for the crisis of the healthcare system?

Abstract

Using an original survey, we probe Canadians' evaluation of the performance of their healthcare system and their attribution of the blame for the system's problems. We show that more vulnerable and left-wing respondents are more likely to believe that the system is in crisis. In turn, respondents having negative performance evaluations are more likely to blame poor provincial organization rather than insufficient federal funding. Perceiving that the system is in crisis and that poor organization is the main problem are associated with support for the imposition of national standards by the federal government as a condition for additional healthcare transfers.