Health Care’s Hidden Face

Summary

The purpose of this project was to inform public-private debate in the context of Canadian healthcare. The project compared health care systems in all of the Canadian provinces, as well as those of similar nations around the world. The private health care sector in Canada is large and thriving. Most health care services are actually a form of public-private partnership, such as the relationship between doctors, who are private businesspeople, and Medicare, which uses tax dollars to pay doctors on behalf of patients. Concerned for the economic sustainability of the medicare system, AIMS undertook this research project to help guide policy makers by examining strategies to redefine the frontier between public and private service provision.

Grant Outputs

Definitely NOT the Romanow Report: Achieving equity, sustainability, accountability and consumer empowerment in Canadian health care – http://www.aims.ca/site/media/aims/notromanow.pdf

This report includes sections authored by a number of researchers interested in providing a cohesive set of policy recommendations based on substantive economic analyses. The report was compiled as a response to the Romanow Report – a federally commissioned report on the future of Canadian health care published in November 2002. The report recommends changing the existing boundaries between public and private healthcare provision. It suggests that a powerful, arm’s-length health care information commissioner in each province should be appointed to ensure that reporting on all forms of service provision occurs in a timely manner and that all provinces are providing comparable service.