Health Care Delivery System: Canada

Abstract Canada's health care delivery system is a set of loosely coordinated provincial and territorial systems of hospital and medical care insurance. The means by which the provincial and territorial health care systems are coordinated is through a series of joint financing initiatives with the federal government. The principles of health care in Canada include universality, accessibility, comprehensiveness, portability, and public administration. Structurally, health care in Canada includes coverage of the costs of the most expensive form of care – hospitals and physicians’ services. It is little surprise, therefore, that cost controls have become an issue. The accommodations made to establish public health care in Canada also serve to institutionalize the status quo of medical dominance with doctors as the gatekeepers to access many aspects of the system.