Nadeem Esmail

Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute

Nadeem Esmail is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute. He first joined the Fraser Institute in 2001, served as Director of Health System Performance Studies from 2006 to 2009, and has been a Senior Fellow since 2010. Mr. Esmail has spearheaded critical Fraser Institute research including the annual Waiting Your Turn survey of surgical wait times across Canada and How Good Is Canadian Health Care?, an international comparison of health care systems. In addition, Mr. Esmail has authored or co-authored more than 30 comprehensive studies and more than 150 articles on a wide range of topics including the cost of public health care insurance, international comparisons of health care systems, hospital performance, medical technology, and physician shortages. A frequent commentator on radio and TV, Mr. Esmail's articles have appeared in newspapers across North America. Mr. Esmail completed his B.A. (Honours) in Economics at the University of Calgary and received an M.A. in Economics from the University of British Columbia.

Recent Research by Nadeem Esmail

— Oct 10, 2023
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Mental Health Care: How is Canada Doing?

Mental Health Care: How is Canada Doing? compares Canada’s mental health services to other countries with universally accessible health care and finds that, despite the Canadian government spending a larger share of health dollars on mental health services, Canada has relatively fewer psychiatric care beds (ranking 22nd out of 28 nations), psychiatrists (ranking 16th out of 28 nations), and psychologists (ranking 15th out of 26 nations) in addition to growing wait times.

— Jun 10, 2021
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Understanding Universal Health Care Reform Options: Activity-Based Funding

Understanding Universal Health Care Reform Options: Activity-Based Funding is a new study that finds paying hospitals for each patient they treat, also known as activity-based funding, instead of allocating pre-defined annual budgets could improve the quantity and quality of health care services while reducing wait times for Canadians. Nearly every other developed country with a universal health-care system has moved towards activity-based funding in recent decades, whereas Canada is among the last to continue to use lump sum payments.

— Apr 29, 2021
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Money Following Patients: A Better Way to Pay for Universally Accessible Hospital Care

Money Following Patients: A Better Way to Pay for Universally Accessible Hospital Care is a new study that compares Canada’s health care funding model to that of 28 other countries that provide universally accessible health care. Only five—Canada, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg and New Zealand—still largely fund hospitals with lump sum payments, while all of the other 23 countries with have adopted per-patient funding models, otherwise known as activity-based funding.