Summary Parting At The Crossroads The Development Of Health Insurance In Canada

The United States and Canada have similar welfare states, meaning their objective is to promote and protect the economic and social well-being of their citizens. As well, health care was the same until 1940 (Maioni, 1997). The article “Parting at the Crossroads: The Development of Health Insurance in Canada and the United States 1940 -1965” by Antonia Maioni, explains how, in these two countries, health insurance was implemented and why it became divergent over time. The one assumption that could explain this was a social democratic third party that started as Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Canada in 1932. It was form by independent labour representatives in the House of Commons. The CCF formed in postwar and proposed universal

As we know, after the 1940s, the two countries developed different health care systems. In the article, Maioni argues that completely different health care systems caused by diverse political systems in these two countries. The major point that the author makes to support her arguments was impact of the third party. The third party could only form in Canada, but not in the United States. This can be explained by the following two reasons. First, the rules of parliamentary government in Canada give the right for the formation of a third party and give it potency. Second, federalism in Canada is decentralized which means a lack of equal representatives who could represent regions and provinces at the federal level. Therefore, provinces have more liberty and more authority that could lead to the formation of the third party. In contrast, the United States third party has less independence because of the complicated rules of the committee system and control by two antagonistic parties (Maioni, 1997). Therefore, due to these facts, two different health policies were developed as universal health insurance in Canada, and private health insurance in the United

To me, the most important message is that governments should make changes in health care reform based on an average person’s needs and health, and not just to satisfy politicians. This is the difference between the United States and Canada health care insurance plans. It is connected to the idea of the third party. This was the key idea in the article. The third party played a huge role in implementing universal health care insurance in Canada. In contrast, in the United States, a third party had potential to form, who supported the idea of the universal health insurance in the first place. Nevertheless, due to the limitation of other parties, it subsequently merged with Democratic Party and was obliged to adhere the party’s agenda. Therefore, the United States had a chance to implement better universal health insurance than in Canada, but the antagonistic parties denied it in