Defend Public Healthcare

A major limit to the growth of for-profit medical and surgical clinics in Canada has been a prohibition against physicians billing public medicare systems while also charging patients for medically necessary services through a private clinic. This has led  many doctors to stay in the public system because they can’t get enough work in the private system to fully support themselves, says Cory Verbauwhede, a lawyer for Médecins Québécois pour le Régime Public, a pro-medicare group in Quebec.  But the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports specialists in Quebec have launched a lawsuit in hopes of striking down the one-or-the-other rule.  “The law forbidding publicly funded doctors from working in the same setting as a non-participating doctor impedes on the right of people to associate themselves,” says Dr. Gaétan Barette, president of Quebec’s medical specialists’ federation. The CMAJ reports that Ontario ...

The Hamilton Spectator reports that  "[h]undreds of area families are turning to a private health service to get their children treatment for autism and other developmental disabilities because of long waits and gaps in publicly funded care.  A growing company called blueballoon has 1,400 clients in the Hamilton and Burlington area who pay as much as $125 an hour to get their kids help with a wide range of issues ".(My emphasis.) Paying privately is sometimes the only way to get access to optimal care, acknowledges Dr. Peter Szatmari, who heads McMaster University's division of child psychiatry and is considered one of the world's leading experts in autism.  And even McMaster Children's Hospital, which has among the best autism services in Canada, needs more resources. Szatmari says improvements need to be made to ensure treatment doesn't depend on parents' ability to pay for private services. "I think these are programs that need to be univers...