RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Why not private health insurance? 1. Insurance made easy
JF Canadian Medical Association Journal
JO CMAJ
FD Canadian Medical Association
SP 539
OP 542
VO 161
IS 5
A1 Raisa Deber
A1 Alina  Gildiner
A1 Pat  Baranek
YR 1999
UL http://www.cmaj.ca/content/161/5/539.abstract
AB How realistic are proposals to expand the financing of Canadian health care through private insurance, either in a parallel stream or an expanded supplementary tier? Any successful business requires that revenues exceed expenditures.Under a voluntary health insurance plan those at highest risk would be the most likely to seek coverage; insurers working within a competitive market would have to limit their financial risk through such mechanisms as "risk selection" to avoid clients likely to incur high costs and/or imposing caps on the costs covered. It is unlikely that parallel private plans will have a market if a comprehensive public insurance system continues to exist and function well. Although supplementary plans are more congruous with insurance principles, they would raise costs for purchasers and would probably not provide full open-ended coverage to all potential clients. Insurance principles suggest that voluntary insurance plans that shift costs to the private sector would damage the publicly funded system and would be unable to cover costs for all services required.