Public health care threatened by trade agreements

For-profit health care is naturally attractive to corporations, which stand to make big profits from the privatization of health care. The World Bank estimates that global health expenditures exceed $4 trillion USD every year. The most promising sources of future profits are lucrative health care programs such as Canada’s, which are still being delivered on a public, not-for-profit basis.

Corporations can gain access to public programs, such as health care through trade agreements.

Negotiations for a Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) began in May 2009. This trade agreement would eliminate most tariffs between Canada and the EU while reaching “behind the border” to change non-trade related government policies that affect business profits. The EU wants all of our public services covered by the CETA – including health care. This will expose our medicare system to even more privatization pressures than past free trade deals did. Other CETA reforms mean higher generic drug costs. Since drug costs are the leading cause of increased health care budgets across the country, it will threaten the sustainability of our public system.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) also threatens Canada’s health care system by providing U.S. health consortiums and HMOs with “national treatment” rights to compete for health care services. The exemption for health care, which has kept large U.S. health corporations out of Canada, applies only to the extent that health care services are social services established or maintained for a public purpose. If health care is opened up to private interests through CETA, or government decisions, NAFTA would force Canada to give equal treatment to U.S. companies competing for patients with our public system.

The Council of Canadians supports fair trade agreements that do not harm public programs. Public health care is Canada’s most valued social program and should never be on the negotiating table.

Resources:

• CETA’s High Toll on Health Care, Canadian Perspectives, Summer 2011

• The CETA and Health Care Reservations: A briefing note for the Canadian Health Coalition, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, March 24, 2011

• The Potential Impact on the Costs of Brand-Name Drugs of the European demands in the context of Canada-European Union CETA Negotiations, Marc-André Gagnon, February 2011

• Article: A tough pill to swallow, Canadian Perspectives, Autumn 2005

Read more about CETA at www.canadians.org/ceta.