Allowing Private Health Insurance For Basic Care Could Reduce Wait Times, Expand Hospital Beds: Report

OTTAWA — A new report estimates that allowing Canadians to take out private insurance for basic health care services covered by public plans could ultimately lead to double-digit reductions in patient wait times, based on policies enacted in similar countries.

The report, released Thursday by the Montreal Economic Institute, urges provincial governments to scrap legal barriers to duplicative private health insurance, which would allow patients to use private coverage for publicly insured procedures, including faster access at private hospitals and clinics.

“Allowing duplicate insurance to cover privately delivered medically necessary services … would formalize and broaden access to timely care while facilitating investment in private infrastructure, thereby increasing overall healthcare system capacity,” writes the report’s author, Conrad Eder, an associate researcher MEI.

The report notes that Denmark and Australia have already seen positive results from expanding duplicative insurance. Both countries, like Canada, maintain universal, taxpayer-funded health-care systems.

In Denmark, the increasing use of private health insurance and private hospitals coincided with a 36.7 per cent reduction in surgical wait times between 2001 and 2011.

In Australia, the provision of duplicative insurance, known domestically as “hospital cover,” has coincided with steady growth in the number of private hospital beds and modest reductions in public hospital wait times.

Australia’s private hospitals now cover more than 40 per cent of all hospital admissions and deliver approximately 70 per cent of elective surgeries.

Approximately 45 per cent of Australians hold “hospital cover” insurance policies, with typical monthly premiums ranging from $84 to $293 in Canadian dollars.

Duplicative insurance is not explicitly prohibited under the federal Canada Health Act. However, six provinces functionally ban it for core health services. This includes British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, which allows a partial exception for cataract extensions and hip and knee replacements.

Emmanuelle Faubert, MEI’s lead health policy researcher, said that the viability on duplicative insurance in the Canadian market will largely depend on the expansion of private health services.

Faubert says that provinces that allow private medical practice, such as Alberta and Quebec, currently do so in too limited of a capacity to sustain a robust, competitive market for private insurance.

“You need a large, diversified pool of premium-paying policyholders for the private insurance market to survive and thrive,” said Faubert. “Realistically, this isn’t going to happen if you only allow private hospitals to perform a small number of elective procedures.”

Faubert noted that, while it’s been two decades since the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that Quebec could not ban private health insurance for medically necessary services, such as elective procedures, private carriers haven’t exactly been flocking to the province.

“Essentially, Quebec ended up saying you can buy private insurance, but only for hip, knee and cataract surgeries … but the pool of people interested in getting coverage for these three specific surgeries isn’t big or diversified enough for the insurance companies to take interest,” said Faubert.

The Alberta government has likewise indicated that family physicians and emergency and life-saving procedures will stay entirely within the public system as it builds out its dual practice health model .

Faubert says she understands the aversion many Canadians have to patients paying out of pocket for a higher standard of primary care, but adds that those with the means to do so are already “jumping the queue” by travelling out of province and internationally for care.

“We have to be honest about this,” said Faubert. “Duplicative private health insurance actually bridges the gap (and) allows more people to have access to timely care.”

Faubert added that duplicative insurance would indirectly help non-users by reducing wait times in the public system.

Some 1.4 million Canadians sat on waiting lists for a medical procedure last year, with an average wait time of 28.6 weeks, according to the Fraser Institute .

Data obtained through freedom of information requests show that at least 23,746 Canadians died while waiting for surgeries and diagnostic procedures between April 2024 and March 2025 .

National Post
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