ABSTRACT
On a per capita basis, the United States spends from 25 to 50 percent more on hospitals than Canada (I, 2). Such differences cannot be attributed to higher rates of hospital admission in the United States; rather, "patients at U.S. hospitals appear to use either more inputs or more highly paid inputs (or both) than do patients at Canadian hospitals" (1). Are the greater hospital expenditures per patient stay in the United States associated with better outcomes?
