Finally, most of Canada believes that socialized Health Care is a Good Thing. If you're talking about essential health services, you're dealing with government run health care agencies. Private clinics for non-essential services (such as plastic surgery or fertility) do exist, but it's not legal for non-socialized doctors to offer essential health care (except in, I think, Alberta).
In that sense, private health care is in violation of law.
On the other hand, private business are sometimes involved in health care. My mother, for example, worked for a private lab that tested blood. Doctors and hospitals would send blood samples to the lab and they would bill the hospitals who would in turn bill the government. The conservatives in Canada want more of this. I, personally, don't understand why.
In the last few elections, the question of private health facilities is generally discussed in terms of "two-tier health care" where the two tiers are "health care for the affluent" and "health-care for everyone else". Two tier health care is very unpopular because people generally believe that if you have a separate health care for the rich, the public health care will suffer. (Public and private schools in the US are often pointed to as a model for this problem. People with money send their kids to private schools, and don't really want the government spending lots of money on public education so it just gets worse and worse).
Even our most conservative parties have had to distance themselves from the idea of "two-tier health care". (Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance once held up a sign during a televised debate that said "No Two-Tier Health Care"). Again, Alberta seems to be the only province that has found the idea of privatization of Health Care can be palatable).
The whole socialism/capitalism debate varies in different arenas. At the moment, the idea of privatizing services is very unpopular (especially in Ontario). There's a general feeling that privatization lead to the Walkerton deaths. And the big Blackout from last August.
In general, I think that seeing ourselves as different from the US is probably the Canadian National Sport.
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regna
Re: This is why I am confused by Canadian Politics
Date: 2004-05-24 11:24 am (UTC)Finally, most of Canada believes that socialized Health Care is a Good Thing. If you're talking about essential health services, you're dealing with government run health care agencies. Private clinics for non-essential services (such as plastic surgery or fertility) do exist, but it's not legal for non-socialized doctors to offer essential health care (except in, I think, Alberta).
In that sense, private health care is in violation of law.
On the other hand, private business are sometimes involved in health care. My mother, for example, worked for a private lab that tested blood. Doctors and hospitals would send blood samples to the lab and they would bill the hospitals who would in turn bill the government. The conservatives in Canada want more of this. I, personally, don't understand why.
In the last few elections, the question of private health facilities is generally discussed in terms of "two-tier health care" where the two tiers are "health care for the affluent" and "health-care for everyone else". Two tier health care is very unpopular because people generally believe that if you have a separate health care for the rich, the public health care will suffer. (Public and private schools in the US are often pointed to as a model for this problem. People with money send their kids to private schools, and don't really want the government spending lots of money on public education so it just gets worse and worse).
Even our most conservative parties have had to distance themselves from the idea of "two-tier health care". (Stockwell Day, former leader of the Canadian Alliance once held up a sign during a televised debate that said "No Two-Tier Health Care"). Again, Alberta seems to be the only province that has found the idea of privatization of Health Care can be palatable).
The whole socialism/capitalism debate varies in different arenas. At the moment, the idea of privatizing services is very unpopular (especially in Ontario). There's a general feeling that privatization lead to the Walkerton deaths. And the big Blackout from last August.
In general, I think that seeing ourselves as different from the US is probably the Canadian National Sport.