Abstract
Medicare is a popular program in Canada that offers universal access to medically-necessary healthcare services for all Canadians through a public insurance plan in each province. In spite of its popularity, healthcare privatization has been debated, often over concerns about wait times for select healthcare services. A case report focused on the 2005 Supreme Court’s response to the “Chaoulli v. Quebec” challenge of the Quebec law banning the purchase of private health insurance for publicly-insured services is presented, along with findings from a state of science review to determine if there would be any benefit from adopting the United States model of private health insurance. This review reveals private health insurance would have significant negative implications, especially by creating inequity in healthcare access for low-income groups. Further study is needed to determine whether Canada’s publicly-funded healthcare system would benefit in any way from increased private financing.
Highlights
Medicare, a source of pride and national identity for many Canadians, is a prominent social program that has offered public insurance coverage for all Canadian citizens since 1966 to ensure universal access to medically-necessary healthcare services (Thornhill, Law, Clements, & Stipich, 2008; White & Nanan, 2009; Yalnizyan, 2006)
Quebec” challenge of the Quebec law banning the purchase of private health insurance for publicly-insured services is presented, along with findings from a state of science review to determine if there would be any benefit from adopting the United States model of private health insurance
This review reveals private health insurance would have significant negative implications, especially by creating inequity in healthcare access for low-income groups
Summary
A source of pride and national identity for many Canadians, is a prominent social program that has offered public insurance coverage for all Canadian citizens since 1966 to ensure universal access to medically-necessary healthcare services (Thornhill, Law, Clements, & Stipich, 2008; White & Nanan, 2009; Yalnizyan, 2006). Private insurance for publicly-insured healthcare services has been proposed as a solution to ameliorate wait times for select healthcare services in what is an entirely public healthcare system (Skinner, 2009). Canada’s healthcare policy approach of prohibiting competitive private insurance for publicly-funded healthcare services has been noted as "extreme" by proponents of healthcare privatization; as most other developed countries have some form of mixed public and private health insurance with varying levels of government regulation (Skinner, 2009). Quebec” challenge of the law banning the purchase of private health insurance for publicly-insured services in the Canadian province of Quebec is presented below, following an outline of the value of case study research for informing policymaking. Public funding is a key component of the Canadian Medicare system, and if this foundation changes, so too could the nature of Medicare
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