Is the Canadian Health Care System Better?

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The Question

Americans have long looked to the Canadian universal health care system as the model for delivering health care, but is Canada's delivery system really better?

The Analysis

To help us answer this question, we turned to a recent case decided by the Supreme Court of Canada: Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), 2005 SCC 35. The decision was published June 9, 2005. (Information is taken entirely from the published decision as cited here and is available online at www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-scc/en/rec/html/2005scc035.wpd.html.)

The Evidence

The role of public- and private-sector health care in Canada is not uniform across provinces. Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Manitoba prohibit physicians from charging patients more than they receive from the public plan, so there is no …