The ultimate goal of this paper will be to critically asses the moral arguments of both sides, in order to weigh them holistically and determine which of the two ought to be favored in our society. .
Arguments For the Public System .
Universal health care in Canada is not a completely publicly funded institution. Most estimates agree that about seventy percent of our system is funded through taxation gathered by the federal government, while the remaining thirty percent is paid privately by the individual; either out-of-pocket or through employer insurance. The publicly funded portion includes all primary health issues related to medically necessary procedures taken within hospitals, while the private portion includes treatments deemed auxiliary and often performed outside the hospital setting.iii In fact, Canada's "socialistic" health care system seems less socialistic when compared to other countries prescribing to universal health coverage within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A 2000 study taken by the World Health Organisation ranked Canada's health care system thirtieth in the world, below countries like France, Britain, Sweden and Japan who all have health care systems which fund between seventy-nine and eighty-two percent of attributed costs. The United States was ranked thirty-seventh on the list and pays for forty-five percent of all health care related costs publicly.iv The significance of the study suggests that socialistic systems are not "colossal failures", since the similar variale of many of the top ranked health care systems was heavy public sponsorship. This paper will attempt to validate the claim that the Canadian health care system's grace is it's public nature, and instead of reallocating money and time towards a further development of the private option, we should instead reinvest and strengthen the public nature of our system.