Dealing With the Doctors

The national health-care scheme in Canada was put in place in the 1950s and 60s. The initiative for massive state intervention in the provision of health care came from a social democratic Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) government in Saskatchewan in the late 1940s. Committed to a system of "socialized medicine" the CCF government elected in 1944 took its first tentative step in this direction in 1947 with the introduction of a universal hospital-insurance scheme and medical insurance for pensioners. Ten years later, a federal Liberal government enacted the Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act. This Act provided for 50 percent federal funding of hospital services in provinces with universal hospital insurance schemes. By 1961, all provinces and 99 percent of the Canadian population were covered by hospital insurance schemes.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website

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