Does Private Health Insurance Destroy Public Health Programs?
The case highlights the fact that most countries with public health-insurance programs do not ban private health insurance. The justices reviewed worldwide evidence in examining the claim that permitting citizens to buy private health insurance would destroy the public health-care system in Canada. Yet clearly this is not so. Consider these excerpts from the majority Courts opinion: • Some witnesses asserted that the emergence of the private sector would lead to a reduction in popular support in the long term because the people who had private insurance would no longer see any utility for the public plan. Dr. Howard Bergman [a Canadian physician] cited an article in his expert report. Dr. Theodore Marmor [an American public-policy expert and strong proponent of the U.S. Medicare system] supported this argument but conceded that he had no way to verify it. • [T]he evidence on the experience of other western democracies with public health care systems that permit access to private health
