The case for increased privatization of Canadian health care

The charter-protected right of all Canadians to purchase private medical and hospital services and insurance for medically required services was implied in the 2005 landmark judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) case involving Chaoulli/Zeliotis vs Quebec and Canada. This precedent-setting judgment is now part of Canadian case law and jurisprudence. In this SCC case, two sections of Quebec's medicare legislation that banned the sale and purchase of private medical and hospital insurance and private medical services in hospitals for services covered by government medicare insurance were declared to be unjustified infringements of the plaintiffs' right to life, personal security, inviolability and freedom. Coming in the midst of the longstanding public debate over the future roles of the public and private sectors in Canada's health system, the SCC judgment established the following: 1. Confirmed the legality of purchasing and providing private medical and hospital services and insurance; 2. Declared the invalidation of Quebec legislation that prohibits these private health services and insurance; 3. Reassured the opponents of private sector health services and insurance " that the prohibition [of private services] is not necessary to guarantee the integrity of the public medicare plan " ; 4. Refuted the claims of the Attorney Generals of Quebec and Canada and their expert witnesses, concerning the likely impact of lifting of the ban on private health services and insurance namely: (a) increased overall expenditures, as these would be mainly paid voluntarily by private patients and their insurers; (b) attraction of patients with less acute conditions to the private sector, leaving the sicker patients with the public sector, as the public sector already looks after the sicker patients and would be relieved of many patients with less acute conditions; (c) physicians would tend to lengthen public wait lists in order to direct these patients to their private facilities, since if this should happen the government could establish a framework of practice for public physicians who wished to practice part-time in the private sector. Canada's deteriorating health system is largely the result of ill-conceived federal and provincial health-financing policy and bad health legislation. During the past four decades, individuals and families have been prohibited from purchasing private alternative or duplicate medical and hospital insurance for services covered by the public insurance plan, even when public services are not available. Patients are not allowed to use their medicare insurance for private non-participating physicians. Physicians in the …