Private health and access to it means being able to pay “out-of-pocket” for services not covered in the public health system.
The laws of private health vary from province to province since health falls under provincial jurisdiction – Quebec and British Columbia are the acknowledged leaders with Manitoba taking steps to join them.
People are increasingly turning to private health clinics to avoid wait times
from the public system. Whether or not access to private health will help to
alleviate wait times is yet to be determined.
Conversely, there is little evidence that allowing for private
services will erode the quality of care Canadians have come to expect. Private
clinics that operate in this manner cannot obtain public funding in Canada,
since it contravenes the "equal accessibility" tenets of the Canada
Health Act.
However, recently a landmark decision was rendered in Quebec, has opened the
door to reform. In June 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a Quebec
law preventing people from purchasing private health insurance to pay for medical
services available through the publicly funded system. This ruling does not
apply outside the province.
See: Chaoulli
v. Quebec (Attorney General)[1].