For-profit health care won’t improve care

A new report says there is no evidence to support claims that increasing for-profit private elements of Canadian health care will improve care quality or reduce costs.

"For-profit private health care takes away from the public system. It is not a solution but a huge problem. We need to move forward with public health care, not backwards," said Linda Silas, the president of the nurses union, in a statement.

The report reviews the arguments in favour of for-profit diagnostic and surgical clinics, the construction of health infrastructure by corporate investors, the introduction of fees or co-payments to health services and the role of private insurance to fund patient services.

It concludes there is no such thing as a "parallel system" and that more for-profit private health care cannot exist simply as an "add-on."

The nurses union represents 158,000 nurses.

According to the report:

• Canada spends more on private health care than France, Sweden, Italy or Germany.

• Private health care costs are increasing faster than public health care costs in Canada.

• 3.5 million Canadians are not insured or underinsured for essential medicines.

• expansion of for-profit surgical clinics in New Zealand and Australia dramatically increased wait lists for the same treatments in the public system.