BMJ  2008;336:471 (1 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.39500.451111.DB

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Proposals to make patients pay for medical visits in Quebec meet resistance

David Spurgeon

1 Quebec

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A cross party task force set up to tackle the spiralling costs of Quebec’s provincial healthcare system has recommended an increase in sales tax, introduction of user fees, and greater privatisation.

The much anticipated report from chairman, Claude Castonguay, a former Liberal health minister in 1970 when Quebec joined Canada’s federal health system, proposes among other recommendations a $C25 (£12; {euro}17; $25) fee for each visit to a doctor and an increase of up to one percentage point in the province’s sales tax. The report has encountered considerable resistance.

Quebec’s healthcare costs are increasing by 5.8% a year—surpassing annual government spending increases of 3.9%—and the task force recommends that the province should cap healthcare spending at 3.9% of its total budget.

It also suggests that Quebec residents pay fees of as much as $100 a year to belong to a medical clinic, and that physicians be allowed to practise in . . . [Full text of this article]


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