The legal basis for Canada's healthcare system
- The Constitution Act (1982) assigns responsibility for most health care to the provinces (the national government retains responsibility for aboriginal populations covered by treaties, the armed forces, and members of parliament)
- The Canada Health Act (1984) consolidates and defines the principles of the publicly funded healthcare system, known as Medicare. The five principles are comprehensiveness, universality, portability, public administration, and accessibility
- The Canada Health Act requires that all hospital and physician services be (virtually) 100% publicly financed without user charges. Third party insurance for these services is prohibited. Physicians can “opt out” of their provincially operated Medicare plans, with no state financing of care. There are nuances in how individual provinces regulate this provision, but uptake is very small
- The Canada Health Act is silent on other services, resulting in a patchwork of coverage arrangements that varies considerably from province to province
- The federal government has long shared tax revenues and negotiated cost sharing agreements with the provinces. It used its fiscal levers to engineer the key legislation that created a national Medicare system in the 1950s (Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act 1957) and 1960s (Medicare Act 1966). Its ability to enforce provisions and penalties under the Canada Health Act is contingent on its power to withhold fiscal transfers to offending jurisdictions
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A taxonomy of private health care in Canada
- Most (70%) health care in Canada is publicly financed, but almost all is privately provided. Almost all hospitals are non-profit private societies or corporations. Most non-academic physicians are “fee for service” private practitioners. Long term residential care and home care are variously non-profit, state owned, or for-profit, with different mixes in different provinces
- About half of prescription drug costs are borne privately, either by patients themselves or through third party insurance. All provinces have drug plans that cover certain populations, such as elderly people and those receiving welfare or with special needs
- Recently, increasing numbers of private, for-profit clinics have appeared offering services such as magnetic resonance imaging, cataract and corrective eye surgery, and rehabilitation (particularly physiotherapy). Practices range from totally private transactions, to purchase of services by regional health authorities on behalf of their populations, to third party insurance purchase of rehabilitation services
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ortal207:v2.12.r220559: Fri, Jan 21 2011 12:34:34-->source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121447/