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Just Medicare: The Role of Canadian Courts in Determining Health Care Rights and Access

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Colleen M. Flood
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Access to care has become a key and contentious issue in the Canadian health care system. In this article, I explore the role of Canadian courts in determining rights to access public health insurance (Medicare), beginning with a brief overview of the Canadian system and its distinguishing features, and then moving to discuss challenges to governmental limits on publicly-funded Medicare using the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I argue that the Canadian courts are not, as is often charged, proactive in this area. I question whether the deference exhibited by courts to governmental limits on Medicare is justified given concerns about the fairness of the principles and processes followed by decision-makers. In sharp relief to the judiciary’s conservative approach to applications for better or timely access to publicly-funded Medicare is the recent Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General) which upheld a right to buy private health insurance for “medically necessary” hospital and physician services.

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Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , Winter 2005 , pp. 669 - 680
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Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2005

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References

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