for-profit sector both within and outside the respective medicare systems. We also examine ways the fiscal setting has affected both political and economic sustainability pressures with respect to the inclusion of private commercial initiatives in these three provincial settings. These initiatives occur both within and beyond Canadian provincial medicare systems, and there is a need to see that such initiatives are held publicly accountable for meeting equity and access goals.
This study adds to the comparative health-policy literature by applying a comparative approach to subnational provincial cases. Globally, many nations’ health insurance plans comprise a mix of public and private health care delivery systems—although the mixes of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations vary with respect to the ideological, political, cultural, and historical characteristics of various nations. This book examines how such factors affect the shaping of three provincial health care delivery systems. The figures used in the discussion of Canadian federal and provincial health care expenditures as well as other health care–related expenditures are in Canadian dollars.