The Canadian health care system is different from other countries’ systems. The main distinguishing factor of the Canadian system of health care is that it is entirely funded by the government under a universal health care program. The government spends more on health care compared to many other developed countries. The citizens do not cater for health care services such as copayments in public hospitals. However, the same health care system has its own flaws. The major flaw is the fact that private health care programs have been greatly undermined over the years. In fact, private insurance companies are only allowed to cover for patient services that are not provided by the public health care program. Instead of the private health care programs providing services alongside the main public program, it acts as a supplement to the public program. As a result, the Canadians have to entirely depend on the government funded program. This exposes the health care system to critics on moral and competent grounds.
The health care programs are fully funded by the government. However, in 2003, statistics show that the public sector accounted for only 70 percent of the total Canadian health care funding. That amount is very little compared to the percentages that other developed nations spend on health. This leaves a huge percentage to be catered for by private payments. The citizens have to spend their own money to cater for expenditures on other medical services like purchasing drugs, home care as well as paying for visits to the dentists. The main problem here is that the Canadian health care system does not provide adequate service to all the citizens. This is expected because it is very difficult for the government to fund the entire health care program in a country. The government should have provided for a private health care system to run alongside the public one. The use of both the public and private health care programs simultaneously would help ease the pressure off the public system. Currently, the government program is under pressure because the whole nation depends on it for quality services. Use of private health care would complement the services offered by the public system as well as proving an option for those who can afford to cater for their own medical services to visit the private facilities.
The health care programs in Canada are under the jurisdiction of the provinces. According to the law that was passed in 1984 under the Canada Health Act, the federal government passed its authority of handling health care programs to the provinces. This implied that the provinces had the duty of budgeting for and funding the health care programs within their jurisdictions. The provinces receive different amounts of money from tax and from the federal government. This means that different provinces will allocate different amounts of money to fund the health care program according to the amount of money available. This leads to inequalities in the province allocations to health care programs. For example, some provinces like Alberta spend as much as 45 percent of their provincial budget on health while others spend as little as 27 percent. This huge difference is caused by the devolution of health budgeting. The federal government should retain the budgetary powers of health care programs. Private health care would also help in solving these inequalities. Since some provinces have very small allocations of their budget to health programs, the privatization of health care programs would ease the pressure off the provinces. People will use the private programs like private insurance to cover themselves against health risks. Therefore, to ease the budgetary burdens and health care demand at provincial level, the introduction of the private health care system to be used by the public would significantly improve the Canadian health care system.
The provinces of Canada have the authority to alter health care provision laws without the federal government’s intervention. Several provinces have altered their health care provision laws, for example, Alberta, Quebec and British Columbia. Even though most of these provinces have changed (British Columbia’s changes have not yet materialized), to allow for use of social health care programs alongside the public ones, it is still unequal. Some provinces in the Canada are changing to adopt the private system while others are not. The law making powers should have been retained by the federal government so that any positive changes would be felt by all citizens of Canada. The idea of introducing private health care programs in the whole country would benefit not only the rich people. This is because every citizen will continue contributing towards the public health care system. Then those who can afford to use the private system of health care can use it.
The Canadian health care system is also very much interfered by politics. Politicians’ opinions are usually controversial on matters concerning health care. With Canada’s health care system being fully inclined to a public system, the political ideologies are more likely to interfere with the quality of health care services provided. If the private system of health care was also being used, it would not be affected as much as the public system because the private sector is controlled by private individuals. The private sector of the health system would not be negatively influenced by the various political interventions. Such political activities may affect the quality of the health care services provided by the public facilities. However, private programs will always try to give high quality services even when interfered with by government. Private health care programs are based on values and high quality service in order to achieve their goals of profitability.
Health care services in Canadian health facilities are slow. Cases that require urgent health attention usually have to put to long waiting lists in order to be attended to. This leaves patients living in agony and misery. This has been happening because the Canadian health care system does not allow for private insurance for services that can be offered by the public plan. This leads to all patients having to wait for long periods to be treated. In Quebec, a court case passed that waiting lists took too long leading to adverse effects on patients and their lives. Had there been private health care systems in place to be used for cases like hip replacement, heart surgeries and cancer related cases, there would be no waiting long periods. First, private health insurance would function effectively fast in approving surgeries to be carried out for those who can afford within an appropriate time. The private health care facilities would also be very effective in doing surgeries if need be.
The fact that professional physicians are not allowed to work in public health facilities and in the private facilities in some provinces like Quebec is detrimental. This particular provision by the authorities does not help in solving the inefficiencies in the public health care programs. Even if the physicians were restricted to work only in the public facilities, the citizens’ high demand for health care services will still cause pressure on the available resources. Therefore, physicians should be given the freedom to practice their professionalism both in the public and private health care systems at the same time. This will enhance the accessibility of health services by citizens at their own convenience. The citizens will have the freedom to choose between using the private or public system. Those who will be capable of accessing private health care attention will do so while the rest will benefit from the government sponsored system. In this case, the physicians will be required to be very professional while working for either of the two systems to ensure high quality service.
In Canada, the fact that private health care programs that offer similar service to those provided by the government’s plan makes the health care system non-competitive. In this case, the public health care program acts like a monopoly in health care provision. Even if it is not profit driven, the program will definitely tend to produce less than the market demand for health care services. The number of physicians, nurses and other health care technicians employed by the government will not meet the demand for health care by the whole Canadian population. The introduction of private health care would create a platform for competition in terms of quality health care services. Private facilities will try to provide high quality service so as to lure the public from the relatively cheaper public health care program. This will also lead to improvement of quality of service in the public program as well as reducing the congestion in the public facilities.
The insufficient funding that has been experienced is a sign that the Canadian health care system cannot be funded entirely by the public. There has to be some form of complementation and cost sharing. The public health care program can be retained to continue serving its purpose as it is currently. However, the government should review the health care laws to allow for the private health care program to run concurrently. The private programs like private insurance will then be allowed to provide for cover for other services including offered by the public program. The citizens will then be allowed to pay their own money for government health care services in private facilities. Even with the public system, the patients still cater for some of their costs like dental services and drugs. In such a scenario, the government will not strain in providing funding because some individuals will be willing to pay for themselves. For instance, the rich and some of the middle class people will use the private health care program while the poor and the middle class will continue utilizing the government sponsored program.
The public health care program has been termed to provide inefficient services to some patients. This is very true because the public health care system is depended on by the whole nation to provide some health care services. Since the private health providers are not allowed to give similar services, there will be pressure and high demand for the public provided services. This leads to some people being forced to wait for long periods before they are attended to. Patients with organ transplants, replacements, heart defects, therapy and other diseases have been forced to suffer long periods of pain before they could be given medical attention. However, with the introduction of private health care services, Canadians will have options on where to get medical attention in time. The private health care services will definitely be provided within appropriate time limits. Private sectors usually operate on competitive services; they will set relatively higher costs of services than the public program but will deliver quality services. Therefore, the health care provided in the country will be sufficient to meet the nation’s demand. Patients will not take a long time before they are treated. Similarly, the laws that stipulate that patients be operated or treated of certain diseases after a certain period will not hold for the private programs. The private insurance companies will facilitate immediate medical attention for those who would have subscribed to it.
In conclusion, the people of Canada should have more access to private services in health care than they are accessing today. This will help in enhancing the health care standards in the country as well as increasing accountability in the health sector. This will be a step towards enhancing our already vibrant health care program. This program has been found to be more effective than that being used by USA and the few adjustments to allow the private sector of health to grow will lead to a healthy nation. The private health sector will increase the capacity of the country’s health care service provision potential to a larger capacity. This is because more physicians and health care workers will be employed. That is why Canada needs to introduce full provision of private health care, which will also partly contribute to the improvement of the national economy.
Works Cited
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Detsky, A S and C D Naylor. ""Canada's Health Care System - Reform Delayed."." New England Journal of Medicine 349(8): 804-10. (2003).
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