National Values, Institutions, and Health Policies: What Do They Imply for [Canadian] Medicare Reform?
by Theodore R. Marmor , Kieke G.H. Okma , Stephen R. Latham I. INTRODUCTION The Medicare program, it is quite often asserted, is special for Canadians because the program is taken to embody something distinctive and superior about Canadian social values. For some Canadians, it follows that any effort to alter Medicare substantially amounts to an attack on Canadian values and should be rejected. On the other hand, others have claimed that Canadian national values have undergone substantial changes, and that this shift in values may justify (or excuse) amendments and alterations to the Medicare program. These are what we will term anti- and pro-amendment positions. Both assume a fairly tight connection between what are called “Canadian national values” and the particular structural features of Medicare. In light of this ongoing debate, we have been asked by the Romanow Commission to investigate the role of “national values” in the shaping (or re-shaping) of health insurance programs in C
