This paper presents a summary of th 11th Annual Health Policy Conference, November 6, 1998, Vancouver, British Columbia.

"Medicare" has two meanings for Canadians: the entire range of health care services, or only those (mainly physicians and hospitals) mandated and governed by the Canada Health Act (CHA). This paper focuses on the narrower legal meaning of Medicare, as does the recent Alberta proposal to fund...

A description of recent "Reform" in the Canadian health care system could be made very short. There has not been meet any reform. The authors presents a document presenting the Canadian Health care system and its funding sources.

Our system of Universal public insurance for health care is by a considerable magin Canada's most successful and popular puiblic program. Our system works, and compared to most other systems works well, while the American alternative does not.

While the adjusted clinical group (ACG) system has been extensively validated in the United States, its use in other developed nations has been limited. This article examines the performance of the system in 2 Canadian provinces and accesses the extent to which ACGs can account for some-year and...

Medicare still enjoys broad support, but Canadians have become increasingly concerned that care will not be available for them when they need it. A substantial in Public opinion is a potent catalyst for change. These widespread concerns have already led to large increases in public funding for...

Control of health care costs is often portrayed as a struggle between external, "natural" forces pushing costs up and individuals, groups, and societies trying to resists the inevitable.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) creates new challenges for the Canadian Healthcare system arguably one of the most "socialized" systems in the world today. In particular, the WTO's enhanced trade dispute resolution powers, enforceable with sanctions, may make Canadian healthcare vulnerable to...

While concerns over escalation in health care costs are virtually universal in the industrialized world, the forms of policy response, and their relative success, have been quite variable.

An Abyss divided common understandings about waiting lists from evidence about their nature and causes and what might work to rationalize them. In a recent comprehensive report for Health Canada we found that the state of waiting-list information and management systems in Canada is Woefully...