The effect of NAFTA on the privatization of Canadian health care.
This paper looks at the privatization of healthcare in Canada. Under the NAFTA, health care in Canada cannot be preserved if there is private operation. Once a province has decided to allow the operation of private health care and HMO?s, then under the NAFTA every province in Canada is obliged to do the same. This is irreversible since by allowing the change toward privatization an alteration has been made to a NAFTA reservation.
“One of Canada’s greatest legacies can be considered to be its socially funded Medicare system, founded by Saskatchewan Premier T.C.Douglas in 1947. Ongoing conflict in 1984 between the federal and provincial governments over health care expenditures eventually led to the passing of a new legislation identifying the five basic principles of the Canadian public health care system. This legislation was the Canadian Health Act of 1984, and it was strongly lobbied for by the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA). The federal government took the position that extra-billing and user fees were eroding Medicare, and further that if those practices were allowed to continue and increase, a two tiered system of health care would develop, one for the rich, and another for the poor (Kerr, J.R., & MacPhail, J., 1996).”