Canada Health Care Act of 1984 Helping the Health of Citizens

Canadian Healthcare Legislation

The people of Canada did not have elected officials who were creative enough or bold enough to put universal healthcare legislation on the books until 1984, although there were attempts to provide healthcare coverage for Canadians before that date. This paper reviews the way in which healthcare coverage was introduced in Canada and reviews two programs, Canada Health Act and Medical Care Insurance Act.

Development of Health Services in Canada

Before the end of World War II, the Saskatchewan government -- moved by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Party (CCF) -- began plans to introduce a publically financed health care system. The Saskatchewan government hired Johns Hopkins professor Henry Sigerist to help devise a plan, and he urged the government to go ahead and develop a "total health care organizations that would ensure that all citizens ... " could get good medical care (Crichton, 1997). There had been municipal doctor plans prior to WWII and these presented a kind of theme to follow, and in 1951 a referendum was voted on and lost because many doctors complained that it wasn't the best plan.

There was, however, another effort in Saskatchewan in 1962, called the Medical Care Insurance Act; again doctors opposed it and went on strike for 23 days. Finally a compromise was worked out and it was called the Saskatoon Agreement (Crichton, 48). The Saskatchewan health care legislation became a model of sorts for how Canada would eventually get into the health care business for the whole country.

Other provinces enacted legislation to attempt to provide their citizens with health coverage, including Ontario and British Columbia. And in 1961, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) asked the federal Canadian government to establish a Royal Commission on Health Services. The scheme that had been developed in Saskatchewan was really the impetus for action at the federal level, Crichton explained in her book, Health Care: A Community Concern? Developments in the Organization of Canadian Health Services.

By 1966 an act was passed by the federal government, and was put in place in 1968. All Canadian provinces added the program Pharmacare and Medicare by 1970. As time went by, through the 1980s, the idea of providing health care universally to citizens gained a lot of clout.

The 1984 Canada Health Act

In 1984 the Canada Health Act was put in place, and it ended the extra billing that had been done by Canadian doctors and " ... restated the principles of universality, comprehensiveness, portability, public administration and added equity to guaranteed access" to health care (Crichton).

The federal government had for years been willing to work with the World Health Organization (WHO), and in the middle and late 1980s, Canada's federal government " ... moved toward emphasizing primary care rather than specialist crisis care services" (they had been "steadily growing since the end of the 19th century," Crichton explains).

On page 68, Crichton explains that after the passage of the Canada Health Act in 1984, all the provinces had three years to determine whether or not to back away from any charges (including hospital user fees). But if provinces did not stop charging citizens the federal government had a plan to put pressure on provinces; the government would "forgo grant aid ... dollar for dollar on an assessment of these charges" (Crichton, 68). The idea of taking money away from provinces worked, and by 1987, "all provinces" had agreed to eliminate all fees.