Your Alberta Health Act Canada Health Act
Scope of the Canada Health Act
What is the Canada Health Act?
The Canada Health Act is legislation created by the federal government for all of Canada. It was adopted in 1984 and tells provincial and territorial governments what must be in their health insurance programs to receive funding from the federal government.
Health care delivery is a provincial responsibility. While the Act outlines high level objectives and principles it does not explain how care should be organized and delivered. The Canada Health Act prohibits extra billing and user fees for medically required services and penalizes provinces not in compliance by withholding federal funding.
The Act says that the primary objective of federal health care policy is "to protect, promote and restore the physical and mental well-being of residents of Canada and to facilitate reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers." It names five principles with which provincial health care insurance programs must be consistent if provinces want to receive federal funding.
What are the principles of the Canada Health Act?
- Public Administration Provincial and territorial health care insurance plans must be administered and operated on a non-profit basis by a public authority. This public authority must answer to the provincial or territorial government for decision making.
- Comprehensiveness Provincial and territorial health care insurance plans must cover all the costs of all insured health services provided in hospitals by physicians or for some dental surgeries.
- Universality All insured residents of a province or territory are entitled to the insured health services provided by the provincial or territorial health care insurance plan based on uniform terms and conditions.
- Portability If you have health care coverage in one province or territory, you have coverage in all provinces and territories. Portability does not mean you can just go to any province, territory or country to get services. Instead it means your home province will pay for necessary services when you are away on a temporary basis, such as on business or vacation.
- Accessibility Insured persons in a province or territory will have reasonable access in terms of time and cost to insured hospital, medical and surgical-dental services on uniform terms and conditions, regardless of age, sex, race or health status.
Health services included within the Canada Health Act
Services covered by the Canada Health Act are medically necessary hospital, medically required physician services and some surgical-dental services. The current interpretation of the Canada Health Act is not comprehensive and services such as dental, physical therapy, chiropractic, prescription drugs, nursing homes, home care, dental care, optometric services, ambulance services, massage therapy and psychological services are outside the requirements of the Canada Health Act.
Many provinces go further than the Canada Health Act and pay for more services for their citizens. For example, Alberta provides partial to whole funding for prescription drug benefits, nursing home, home care, dental care, optometric services, midwifery, hearing aids and ambulance services.
Source: Health Canada
