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Much has been written about Canada's health care system as all countries wrestle with rising health costs. Few, however, have attempted to describe the influence of a system of health care on a nonprimary care specialty such as anesthesia. The purpose of this review is to describe the Canadian system, contrast it with that of the United States, and outline the impact that Canadian Medicare has had on anesthetic practice. A centrally controlled health care system is potentially blessed with the stability (and rigidity) inherent in any program perceived by the public as being their right and privilege. Changes are slow to occur, be they changes of new technology or alterations in the form of physician reimbursement. However, such stability means that control of health care costs can be achieved without intrusion into physician-patient relationships and professional freedom is preserved. Similarly, the acquisition of technological support for the practice of anesthesia, necessary to ensure a high standard of public safety, has not been perceived as a problem in Canada. Anesthesia in Canada is a physician-only specialty, and nurse-administered anesthesia does not exist. It is highly dependent on the functioning of the hospitals, for widespread development of freestanding health care institutions has not occurred. Compensation is on a fee-for-service basis, although alternative compensation for certain aspects of practice exists in some jurisdictions. In general, fees are indexed to the surgical procedure at hand, with time (duration) modifiers, as well as modifiers for specific techniques. Overhead is minimal, so although fees for a given procedure are lower than in the United States, the disparity in earned income is reduced. Unfortunately, recent initiatives to control physician use have limited the ability of the profession to compensate completely for this North American discrepancy in fees. Since health care in Canada is a provincial responsibility, there are eleven separate plans linked only by the guiding principles of the National Health Act of 1971. Each provincial medical association is responsible for negotiating the fee schedules with the provinces on behalf of its members. Since these associations must respond to the majority of their members, it has been the perception of specialty groups such as anesthesia that the emphasis of allocations in recent years has been on primary care fields. Anesthetists have therefore found themselves increasingly involved with the collective negotiation process as an unwanted necessity of practice.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)