How Canada ended up with private health care

In today’s The Big Story podcast, as long as Canada has had universal health care, people have been paying out of pocket for faster service. It’s only in the past few years, as the public system has crumbled, that the trickle has turned into a flood.

Christina Frangou recently wrote about private health care in Canada for Maclean’s. “We see people who are tired of not being able to get a family doctor, so they’re paying membership fees at private primary care clinics,” says Frangou, “and then we’re seeing Canadians travelling to different provinces, or even travelling out of country to get surgery because they’re tired of these long waits.”

So what exactly qualifies as private health care in Canada, and who gets it? Where are the loopholes in the system that allow it to proliferate? And why does nobody in Ottawa want to talk about how to tackle a system that’s not working for anyone?

You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and Spotify. You can also find it at thebigstorypodcast.ca.