Term Paper on "Health: Canadian Health Care"

Term Paper 5 pages (1345 words) Sources: 5 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Health: Canadian Health Care

THE CANADIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM Canadian Health Care Philosophy:

Canada maintains a national health care system founded on the principle of providing necessary medical and other health care services to its citizens based on need and without regard to their ability to pay for services. The expressed goal of the Canadian government is for Canada to be one of the countries whose citizens are among the healthiest worldwide. According to the Canadian Royal Commission on Health Services Report (1965):

The principle which has dominated our thinking is that money spent on essential health care is money well spent, an investment in human resources that will pay handsome dividends not only in terms of economics but in human well-being."

Central to achieving this goal is the belief that health services promotion and disease prevention lowers national health care costs in the long run. For this reason, the elements of the integrated health care system includes sanitation, waste management, and medical education, because they contribute to the overall health and welfare issues that impact health. The Canadian health care system is jointly administrated by the federal government, provincial, and local municipalities. The Canada Health Act (CHA) is the legislative authority for the health care system, pursuant to which the federal government establishes qualification criteria for entitlement that must be satisfied by provincial health care insurance plans. At the local level, provincial and territorial municipal governments provide for the actual point-of-service delivery of medical services, and the federal government absorbs their cost through the Canadian Health Transfer (CHT).

Universal health care in Canada is financed by tax revenue generated from federal and local taxes, income tax, corporate tax, as well as payroll tax and sales tax.

Several provinces also impose health care premiums to offset their medical expenses (Madore, 2003).

Historical Background and Legislative History:

The Constitution Act of 1867 established that responsibility for administrating all medical institutions lay with provincial governments, except for marine hospitals and quarantine, which were under the authority of the federal government. The Canadian Health Department was formed in 1919, but medical care was paid for privately until one province, Saskatchewan, established the first universal hospital care plan. Following its success, two other provinces, Alberta and British Columbia, had followed Saskatchewan's lead by introducing similar programs two years later. As early as 1939, prominent Canadian physicians were promoting the philosophy of free universal health care:

our noble tradition that no sick person of any age, sex, race or religion whatsoever, shall ever suffer for need of medical care on account of poverty or any other cause...should be based on our willingness to give, and should be construed as an act of our charity. It should not be exploited: nor should it be assumed as a God-given right by way of its beneficiaries. Least of all should it be a right-of-way for needy and penurious governmental and administrative bodies."

Dr. J.H MacDermot (1939) the federal government promulgated the first national health care program in 1957, with the passage of the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Act of 1957. Generally, the 1967 Act authorized federal reimbursement to the provinces through a 50/50 cost- sharing arrangement for a specified set of medical services, conditions, and diagnostic criteria (Madore, 2003).

In 1977, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act (EPF) transformed the cost-sharing arrangement between the federal and local governments into a combination of direct federal funding and tax points available to the provinces. The principle benefit of the new format was that it enabled provincial and territorial governments to invest health care funding in accordance with their expenses and needs.

The modern Canadian health care system, known as Medicare, took shape following the passage, in 1984, of the Canadian Health Act, and later, a series of legislation culminating, in 1995, in the Canada Health and Social Transfer Act (CHST).

In the last ten years, the Canadian health care system has continued to evolve in adopting further changes to consolidate elements of federal and provincial responsibilities and include funding… READ MORE

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