Health Care System

Canada's health care system has been a work in progress since its inception. Reforms have been made over the past four decades and will continue in response to changes within medicine and throughout society. The basics, however, remain the same - universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay.

Canada's publicly funded health care system is best described as an interlocking set of ten provincial and three territorial health insurance plans. Known to Canadians as "medicare", the system provides access to universal, comprehensive coverage for medically necessary hospital and physician services.

Health Canada's Role

The federal government, the ten provinces, and the three territories have key roles to play in the health care system in Canada. Health Canada's mandate is to help Canadians maintain and improve their health. Among other activities, Health Canada's responsibilities for health care include setting and administering national principles for the health care system through the Canada Health Act and delivering health care services to specific groups (e.g., First Nations and Inuit). Working in partnership with provinces and territories, Health Canada also supports the health care system through initiatives in areas such as health human resources planning, adoption of new technologies and primary health care delivery.

What Information is Available

In this section, you will find an overview of Canada's health care system. More detailed information is also available on specific elements of the health care system, including health human resources, primary health care, home and community care and pharmaceuticals coverage. There is also information on studies examining the health care system and links to further information.

Universal Health Care

As candidates like Hillary Clinton travel around the country promoting universal health care (who doesn’t want everyone to have health care?) there are some “Dirty little secrets” about universal healthcare you might want to consider:

As they tack left and right state by state, the Democratic presidential contenders can't agree on much. But one cause they all support — along with Republicans such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and California's own Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — is universal health coverage. And all of them are wrong.

What these politicians and many other Americans fail to understand is that there's a big difference between universal coverage and actual access to medical care.
Simply saying that people have health insurance is meaningless.

Many countries provide universal insurance but deny critical procedures to
patients who need them. Britain's Department of Health reported in 2006 that at
any given time, nearly 900,000 Britons are waiting for admission to National
Health Service hospitals, and shortages force the cancellation of more than
50,000 operations each year. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as
long as 25 weeks, and the average wait for hip replacement surgery is more than
a year. Many of these individuals suffer chronic pain, and judging by the
numbers, some will probably die awaiting treatment. In a 2005 ruling of the
Canadian Supreme Court, Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin wrote that "access to a
waiting list is not access to healthcare."