Canadian Healthcare System

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Canadian Healthcare System

Canada's healthcare system is a group of socialized health insurance plans that provide coverage to all Canadian citizens. It is publicly funded and administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government. Under this healthcare system, individual citizens are provided preventative care and medical treatments from primary care physicians as well as access to hospitals, and dental surgery. With a few exceptions, all citizens qualify for health coverage regardless of medical history, personal income, or standard of living.
Canada's healthcare system is the subject of much political controversy and debate in the country. Some question the effectiveness of the current system to deliver treatments in a timely manner and suggest adopting a private system similar to the United States. On the other hand, there are worries that making the system private would lead to inequalities in the health system where only the wealthy would be able to afford certain treatments. This is especially a concern for high price treatment such as cancer therapies (Mathews & Park, 2009).
The inequities in the system are apparent when workers in some provinces who do private duty nursing have not been able to get paid through the present system (Crewe, C., 2007). Canada's population has high life expectancy and brags about the lowest infant mortality. The figures also show that Canada has a very low birth rate and even though the aged use a large percentage of the health services, this is no different from its neighbor to the south. Even though there is a lot of debate about the way medicine is conducted, the numbers do not show a big difference in managing healthcare (http://www.cehat.org/rthc/paper4.htm).
Canada Health Act
When Canada Health Act was passed thirty years ago there were five main principles. These are the conditions for funding: There are five main principles in the Canada Health Act:
? Public Administration: All administration of provincial health insurance must be carried out by a public authority on a non-profit basis. They also must be accountable to the province or territory, and their records and accounts are subject to audits.
? Comprehensiveness: All necessary health services, including hospitals, physicians and surgical dentists, must be insured.
? Universality: All insured residents are entitled to the same level of health care.
? Portability: A resident that moves to a different province or territory is still entitled to coverage from their home province during a minimum waiting period. This also applies to residents which leave the country.
? Accessibility: All insured persons have reasonable access to health care facilities. In addition, all physicians, hospitals, and must be provided reasonable compensation for the services they provide.

Provincial Health Insurance
Health insurance in Canada is handled by individual provinces and territories. New residents to a particular province must apply for health coverage. Upon ...