Why Canada’s ‘private health care’ isn’t actually private

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In recent months, a series of crushing shortages in Canadian health care delivery have reignited debate over the virtues of allowing “private health care” into the Canadian system. Saskatchewan has turned to for-profit clinics in a bid to clear up a backlog of joint surgeries. And in a particularly dramatic example, British Columbia is shipping its cancer patients out of the country to obtain care in Washington State. But none of this is really “private health care” in a way that most of the world understands it (and in a way that would actually help alleviate some of Canada’s systemic health care shortages. Watch the video or read the transcript to learn more.

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You’re seeing a lot of controversy about the introduction of “private health care” into the Canadian system. But you can all relax, because it’s not actually private health care. It’s still public health care, but just the worst possible version of it.

In Canada, it’s illegal to buy insurance for anything covered under the public system. Nobody else does this. In The Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan, the UK you can pony up a few thousand dollars each year in private insurance and — if you need stitches — you can either go to the public hospital or use your insurance to get it done privately at an entirely different health care system over here.

That’s private health care.

But Canada insists that if you need stitches, they are the only ones allowed to pay for it. So all these for-profit health care providers are still working for the government — and drawing from the same rationed supply of doctors and health care resources as everyone else.

Except they’re making a profit.