It is important to note that Canada’s healthcare system is private despite the key goal being the provision of universally accessible medical care because it is financed publicly and delivered privately. It is also decentralized and mainly administered by each province and territory separately, whereas the federal government only imposes regulations and legislative elements. In other words, each Canadian province has its own insurance plan, which is funded by the public through the government, but the medical services are provided by mainly private enterprises.
Such a healthcare system is designed to be universally accessible since it is based on four core and fundamental principles of Canadian Medicare, which include universality, portability, comprehensive coverage, and administration (Clarke, 2016). Therefore, the plans are run on a non-profit basis and cover all essential medical services, and the benefits are not locked to a single province. In addition, any individual can have access to healthcare services regardless of one’s socioeconomic status, age, health history, or membership in a group.
Canada’s healthcare system is considered both private and public due to the inherent design of Medicare, where the financing comes from the public, but service provision is delivered privately. The majority of Canadian hospitals are private and non-profit companies, which received the majority of their funding from the government (Clarke, 2016). Such a system enables the delivery of healthcare services on the basis of universality since healthcare facilities are not incentivized to operate similar to the ones in the United States, which are for-profit corporations. Therefore, there is no issue of healthcare access inequality and profit-driven service delivery. In addition, there is a degree of freedom since each province administers its healthcare separately within the boundaries imposed by the federal government.
Reference
Clarke, J. N. (2016). Health, illness, and medicine in Canada. Ontario, Canada: Oxford University Press.