Guarantee medical services outside Canada if treatment delayed here: Senate

A new Senate report says the publicly funded health care system should guarantee treatment within a maximum period, and if it fails it should pay to send patients outside the country for treatment.

In releasing a series of principles and recommendations in April, the Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology also warned that Canadians — not their governments — will have to make the tough choices about what the system will provide.

“In the end, if medicare is to receive an infusion of new money — as we believe that it must — it will come down to some hard choices for Canadians,” said Senator Michael Kirby, the committee chair. “All of us will have to balance our desire for more publicly funded health services against our willingness to pay for them.”

The 14-member Senate committee endorses the single-payer model — with funding provided either by governments or arm's length agencies — to purchase hospital and doctors' services. The report also says the committee's “current inclination” is to have primary care teams act as purchasers of all health care services for their patients. In the 1990s a similar idea was tried and abandoned by Britain's National Health Service. — Steven Wharry, CMAJ