Waiting Lists in Canada: Reality or Hype? American Medical Student Association Prepared by Kao-Ping Chua, AMSA

Introduction Waiting lists in Canada have been a highly symbolic issue to people on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. For those who support privatization of the Canadian healthcare system, the waiting lists speak to a vast lack of healthcare delivery capacity in the public system. Such lists, they argue, would be minimized by moving towards a two-tiered system of care in which the public system existed alongside a parallel private system that would allow privately insured patients to "jump the queues" i.e. get faster access to care. On the other hand, for those who believe in the fundamental principles of equity that the Canadian system is built on, the waiting lists point not to a fundamental flaw in the structure of the Canadian healthcare system but rather to a gross underfunding of the system, which has been triggered largely by reductions in federal funding to provinces for healthcare. The answer, these advocates argue, is to increase funding levels for the current system without moving towards a two-tiered system.