Canada's Two-Tiered System Essay

Canada has government funded universal health care called Medicare, it is free and available to all citizens with public health insurance. Unfortunately, the Canadian health care system is at a decline due to the various problems affecting it such as a shortage of medical staff and supplies, long wait times and limited access to medical services. Recently, the government has been considering the increase of privatization to help the overburdened system. Despite this, it is still illegal to pay privately for services that are publicly funded in six out of the ten provinces in Canada (Flood & Archibald, 2001). I posit that the Canadian health care system will improve by the introduction of a two-tiered system, because it will reduce the burden

Each year, Canada spends over $300 billion on Canadian Medicare, our taxes cover 70 % of essential medical services and private insurance covers the other 30% considered the private sector (Norris, 2020). Dentistry and vision coverage, massage therapy, prescription drugs and ambulance trips are the services not covered by the public health care system (Health Canada, 2023). Therefore, private health care is available to a limited extent, the problem that exists is that, for Canadians, the billing and paying out-of-pocket for medical services covered by Medicare is prohibited. Various countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Australia employ a two-tiered system and preform very well, “[i]n comparison… Canada ha[s] the highest proportion of patients with long wait times for specialist appointments and elective surgery” (Moir et al., 2020, para.10). Similarly to Canada, in Australia, public insurance that is tax funded provides residents with free universal health care. While Australian residents also have access to a private health care sector funded by private insurance and out-of-pocket expenses (Barrua & Esmail, 2016). Their federal government encourages the purchase of private insurance “through policies such as an income tax surcharge for high-income earners who do not have private insurance … [and] lifetime price reductions for those who purchase private health insurance at younger ages” (Barrua & Esmail, 2016, para. 8). Moreover, the hospitals are organized so that public hospitals provide emergency care, complex treatment, and surgeries, whilst private hospitals concentrate on providing services that have long wait times in the public system like elective surgeries. Patients have the option for treatment as private patients in public hospitals, so that they can choose the physician caring for them and their private insurance