Is Two-Tier Health Care the Future? (Law, Technology and Media) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0776628070 ISBN 13: 9780776628073

Publisher: University of Ottawa Press, 2020

Synopsis

Canadians are deeply worried about wait times for health and this book explores whether or not two-tier health care is a solution.

Entrepreneurial doctors and private clinics are bringing Charter challenges to existing laws restrictive of a two-tier system. They argue (wrongly in our view) that Canada is an outlier amongst developed countries in limiting options to jump the queue. 

In this book, leading researchers explore the public and private mix in Canada and within countries such as Australia, Germany, France and Ireland. We explain the history and complexity of interactions between public and private funding of health care. We also explain the many regulations and policies found in different countries used to both inhibit and sometimes to encourage two-tier care (for example, tax breaks). If a Canadian court strikes down laws restrictive of two-tier, Canadian governments can (i) permit and even encourage two-tier care to grow; (ii) pass new regulations that allow a small measure of two-tier care; or (iii) take positive steps to eliminate wait times in Canadian health care, and thereby reduce demand for two-tier care. We argue for option three as the best means to ensure Canadian principles of equity in access, ensure timely care, and fend off constitutional challenges.

This work is critical not only for court challenges but also for Canadian governments who need the best evidence possible about different approaches to regulating two-tier care if they are forced by a court to revisit existing laws as a result of a successful Charter challenge.

About this title

About the Author:

Colleen M. Flood FRSC is a University of Ottawa Research Chair in Health Law & Policy and inaugural director of the Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.

Bryan Thomas is Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and Adjunct Professor with the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa. His research spans a wide range of topics including Canadian and comparative health law and policy, health rights litigation, long-term care, global health law, and the role of religious argument in legal and political discourse.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

“....overcoming the many barriers and interest groups opposed to universal medicare was a hard-won political war waged over many years, particularly with respect to medical associations who fought tooth and nail against the prospect of a public health care system and various politicians who were ideologically in favour of maintaining a significant role for private health insurance.  The melange of laws that exist across the provinces, and the Canada Health Act itself, are thus a product of the particular history and context of medicare, including political accommodations necessary to bring doctors into the public plan (for example, they are not public employees but independent contractors mostly paid on a fee-for-service basis with still relatively little governmental control over their clinical decision-making).”

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
• Publication date: 2020
• ISBN 10: 0776628070
• ISBN 13: 9780776628073
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 348
• Editor: Flood Colleen M., Thomas Bryan