They’re basically exploiting a grey area that isn’t specifically outlined as being illegal, but ultimately creates an environment where illegally preferential care could occur. But they say ah but we still provide access one day a week to the general public for necessary care, therefore we are all g - Health Canada is now challenging this approach fortunately.
I didn’t think it was that grey at all. The Canada Health Act says you cannot charge for preferential treatment and doing so will strip the Province of Federal funds. In fact, the Canadian government already clawed back $14M.
I think the issue has been, while the result is something illegal (and that’s why it’s rightfully being cracked down on), the path to get there is not strictly outlawed. They are paying a subscription service for an amount of general visits, but because the purpose of the visit isn’t outlined prior to the patient requesting them, the visits could be non-essential or elective care - things that doctors are not obligated to provide access to equally or freely. And then they say they will also offer some level of necessary care to non subscribers. But obviously in practice some of those preferred customers will book non essential appointments and deprive the non-payers of spots to even make requests for necessary care.
At least that is how I understood it. It is wrong and Health Canada is responding properly it just wasn’t super direct path to wrongness that makes it easy to point directly to a line in the Health Act - and that’s why these greedy centres tried to get away with this bs in the first place
They’re basically exploiting a grey area that isn’t specifically outlined as being illegal, but ultimately creates an environment where illegally preferential care could occur. But they say ah but we still provide access one day a week to the general public for necessary care, therefore we are all g - Health Canada is now challenging this approach fortunately.
I didn’t think it was that grey at all. The Canada Health Act says you cannot charge for preferential treatment and doing so will strip the Province of Federal funds. In fact, the Canadian government already clawed back $14M.
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/ottawa-clawing-back-almost-14-million-in-health-funding-from-alberta-over-private-fees
I think the issue has been, while the result is something illegal (and that’s why it’s rightfully being cracked down on), the path to get there is not strictly outlawed. They are paying a subscription service for an amount of general visits, but because the purpose of the visit isn’t outlined prior to the patient requesting them, the visits could be non-essential or elective care - things that doctors are not obligated to provide access to equally or freely. And then they say they will also offer some level of necessary care to non subscribers. But obviously in practice some of those preferred customers will book non essential appointments and deprive the non-payers of spots to even make requests for necessary care.
At least that is how I understood it. It is wrong and Health Canada is responding properly it just wasn’t super direct path to wrongness that makes it easy to point directly to a line in the Health Act - and that’s why these greedy centres tried to get away with this bs in the first place
Thank you for sharing. I’ve been doing up some reading to understand this better
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Ah I see, thank you so much for the explanation. That makes sense. I wasn’t clear on the exact terms outlined in the Act.