As part of the Canadian Health Coalition’s ongoing campaign against a privatized health care system and in anticipation of National Medicare Week, November 16 to 20, the CHC is asking Canadians to sign their online medicare pledge.

The Privatization Guarantee: Pay more, Get less.

Since the early 1990s, a new industry of for-profit health care clinics and services has grown up across Canada. Today, for-profit MRI/CT clinics, surgical hospitals and boutique physicians clinics are offering medically-necessary services outside the public health care system in almost every region in the country. Under the guise of improving access to health care, these for-profit clinics are aggressively promoting their private services and threatening our universal system and equal access to quality care.

As the he H1N1 vaccine continues to be rolled out across the country, we have begun to see the effects of a two-tiered health care system. Thousands of high risk Canadians wait hours to receive the vaccine, or are unable to get the shot due to shortages, while wealthy, healthy Canadians jump the cue by paying for the vaccine at private clinics.

Pay More:
For-profit clinics charge a wide range of prices across the country, but they are all out-of-reach for most Canadians needing care. In Quebec, where there are the most for-profit MRI/CT clinics, the prices run from $600-$1,350 per scan. The median income in the province is roughly $24,000.

Get Less:
Private clinics don’t like patients who have complex or urgent needs. By choosing to do only the simplest - and highest revenue - procedures, the private clinics “skim” off the lucrative procedures and leave the high risk, high-cost patients to the public system.

Take Action

We need to take action and continue to demonstrate our support for medicare. Please let your family, friends, activists, committees and groups you work with and others who will be interested in defending and improving medicare for all, know about the pledge.

  • Sign the pledge online, or
  • Print off a pledge form to circulate, sign and mail to the Canadian Health Coalition.
  • You can also send a message to the Premier and the Prime Minister to tell them you don’t want our public system privatized and dismantled; you want it improved with innovative public solutions.