Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Does Canada have universal health care?
Canada (with the exception of the province of Quebec) is one of the few countries with a universal healthcare system that does not include coverage of prescription medication (other such countries are Russia and some of the former USSR republics even though Russia is considering a switch to full coverage of many prescription medications in the near future[11]). Residents of Quebec who are covered by the province's public prescription drug plan pay an annual premium of $0 to $660 when they file their Quebec income tax return.[12][13] Pharmaceutical medications are covered by public funds in some provinces for the elderly or indigent,[14] or through employment-based private insurance or paid for out-of-pocket. Most drug prices are negotiated with suppliers by each provincial government to control costs but more recently, the Council of the Federation announced an initiative for select provinces to work together to create a larger buying block for more leverage to control costs of pharmaceutical drugs.[15] More than 60 percent of prescription medications are paid for privately in Canada.[4] Family physicians (often known as general practitioners or GPs in Canada) are chosen by individuals. If a patient wishes to see a specialist or is counselled to see a specialist by their GP, a referral is made by a GP in the local community. Preventive care and early detection are considered critical and yearly checkups are recommended for everyone.
The government ensures the quality of care through federal standards. The government does not participate in day-to-day care or collect any information about an individual's health, which remains confidential between a person and their physician.[4] Canada's provincially based Medicare systems are cost-effective because of their administrative simplicity. In each province, each doctor handles the insurance claim against the provincial insurer. There is no need for the person who accesses healthcare to be involved in billing and reclaim at all. Private health expenditure accounts for 30% of health care financing.[5] The Canada Health Act does not cover prescription drugs, home care or long-term care or dental care, which means most Canadians rely on private insurance from their employers or the government to pay for those costs.[4] Provinces provide partial coverage for children, those living in poverty and seniors.[4]
According to Canada's constitution, the provinces have responsibility for health care, education and welfare. However, the federal Canada Health Act sets standards for all the provinces. The Canada Health Act requires coverage for all medically necessary care provided in hospitals or by physicians; this explicitly includes diagnostic, treatment and preventive services. Coverage is universal for qualifying Canadian residents, regardless of income level.
Nowadays the situation has changed and health care system in Kosovo is organized in three sectors including, primary, secondary and tertiary health care.
Primary health care in Prishtina is organized in thirteen Family Medicine Centers and fifteen Ambulantory Care Units. Secondary health care is decentralized in seven Regional Hospitals. Though Prishtina does not have any Regional Hospital and instead uses University Clinical Center of Kosovo for health care services. University Clinical Center of Kosovo provides its health care services in twelve clinics, where 642 doctors are employed. At a lower level, home services are provided for several vulnerable groups which are not able to reach health care premises. Kosovo health care services are now focused on patient's safety, quality control and assisted health.
In countries that have a universal health care system, health inequalities have been reduced. In Canada, for example, equity in the availability of health services has been improved dramatically through Medicare. People don't have to worry about how they will pay health care, or rely on emergency rooms for care, since health care is provided for the entire population. However, inequality issues still remain. For example, not everyone has the same level of access to services. Inequalities in health are not, however, only related to access to health care. Even if everyone had the same level of access, inequalities may still remain. This is because health status is a product of more than just how much medical care people have available to them. While Medicare has equalized access to health care by removing the need for direct payments at the time of services, which improved the health of low status people, inequities in health are still prevalent in Canada. This may be due to the state of the current social system, which bear other types of inequalities such as economic, racial and gender inequality.
Nowadays the situation has changed, and the health care system in Kosovo is organised into three sectors: primary, secondary and tertiary health care.
Primary health care in Pristina is organised into thirteen family medicine centres and fifteen ambulantory care units. Secondary health care is decentralised in seven regional hospitals. Pristina does not have any regional hospital and instead uses University Clinical Center of Kosovo for health care services. University Clinical Center of Kosovo provides its health care services in twelve clinics, where 642 doctors are employed. At a lower level, home services are provided for several vulnerable groups which are not able to reach health care premises. Kosovo health care services are now focused on patient safety, quality control and assisted health.
In recognition of his work in the field of public health, York University's Faculty of Health, and Carleton University have awarded him honorary Doctor of Laws degrees. The University of Waterloo conferred a Doctor of Science Degree on him in 2017. He is also a recipient of The Canadian Public Health Association R D Defries Award, its highest honour. 
The College of Family Physicians, ScotiaBank Family Medicine Lectureship,
The Medal of Service, from The Canadian Medical Association for, "his outstanding and exceptional contribution to health care in Canada" as well as the President's Award of the Public Health Physicians of Canada.
Chin state does not have any secular colleges or universities. Students have leave to pursue higher education. The majority attend university in Tahan-Kalay, Sagaing Division. However, there are private theological colleges in Chin state:
The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. The health care infrastructure outside of Yangon and Mandalay is extremely poor. Although health care is nominally free, in reality, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack many of the basic facilities and equipment. The following is a summary of the public health system in the state.
In 1999, during his abortive 2000 Reform Party presidential campaign, Trump told TV interviewer Larry King, "I believe in universal health care." In his 2000 book, "The America We Deserve", Trump reiterated his call for universal health care and focused on a Canadian-style single-payer health care system as a means to achieve it. Though he characterized the Canadian health-care system as "catastrophic in certain ways" in October 2016 during the second presidential debate, the Trump campaign website wrote in June 2015 about his support for "a system that would mirror Canada's government-run healthcare service" under the title "What does Donald Trump believe? Where the candidate stands on 10 issues". In 2015, Trump also expressed admiration for the Scottish health-care system, which is single payer.
The Minister of Health () is the Minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible for overseeing health-focused government agencies including Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as enforcing the "Canada Health Act" (the law governing Canada's universal health care system). The current Minister of Health is Ginette Petitpas Taylor, MP for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe.
Universal health care does not imply coverage for all people for everything. Universal health care can be determined by three critical dimensions: who is covered, what services are covered, and how much of the cost is covered. It is described by the World Health Organization as a situation where citizens can access health services without incurring financial hardship. The Director General of WHO describes universal health coverage as the “single most powerful concept that public health has to offer” since it unifies “services and delivers them in a comprehensive and integrated way”. One of the goals with universal healthcare is to create a system of protection which provides equality of opportunity for people to enjoy the highest possible level of health.
HealthForceOntario is a collaborative initiative, announced May 3, 2006, involving two Ontario Canada ministries: Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (Ontario) and the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. The goal of the HealthForceOntario strategy is to ensure that Ontarians have access to the right number and mix of qualified health care providers, now and in the future. Its mandate is to identify and address Ontario’s health human resource needs; engage partners in education and health care to develop skilled, knowledgeable providers and create the health care delivery teams that will make the most of their abilities; introduce new and expanded provider roles to increase the number of providers working in health care and develop the skills of those already in the system; and to make Ontario the employer-of-choice for all health care providers.
Polling data in the last few years have consistently cited Canadian Health Care as among the most important political issues in the minds of Canadian voters. Along with peacekeeping, Canadian Health Care was found, based on a CBC poll, to be among the foremost defining characteristics of Canada. 
It has increasingly become a source of controversy in Canadian politics. As a recent report from the Health Council of Canada has noted
"Herein lies one of the puzzles of Canadian health care: Canadians increasingly view the health care system as unsustainable and under threat, even as their own experiences with the system are mostly positive."
In defending the changes, the government explained its rationale as being to ensure equality between the health care received by refugees and that afforded to Canadians such that refugees would not receive superior benefits. Former Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney emphasized the generosity of Canadians and Canada's immigration system, stating that the government did “not want to ask Canadians to pay for benefits for protected persons and refugee claimants that are more generous than what they are entitled to themselves.” In a related case, Nell Toussaint v. Attorney General of Canada, the Supreme Court cautioned that by extending universal health care regardless of immigration status, Canada “could become a health-care safe haven”.
The party platform supports a public health care system with development long-term financing solutions for individual care. The party has expressed support towards single payer universal health care coverage with the inclusion of a public option in this plan. The party does not support the denial of coverage towards women for abortion services. Democrats have been involved with healthcare issues and supportive of non-profit healthcare providers. They are also responsible for the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act.
Depending on where they live, some transgender people are able to access gender-specific health care through public health insurance programs. Medicaid does not have a federal policy on transgender health care and leaves the regulation of the coverage of gender-confirming health care up to each state. While Medicaid does not fund sex reassignment surgery in forty states, several, like New York and Oregon, now require Medicaid to cover (most) transgender care.
The Canada Health Act covers the services of psychiatrists, medical doctors with additional training in psychiatry. In Canada, psychiatrists tend to focus on the treatment of mental illness with medication.[113] However, the Canada Health Act excludes care provided in a "hospital or institution primarily for the mentally disordered."[114] Some institutional care is provided by provinces. The Canada Health Act does not cover treatment by a psychologist[115][116] or psychotherapist unless the practitioner is also a medical doctor. Goods and Services Tax or Harmonized Sales Tax (depending on the province) applies to the services of psychotherapists.[117] Some coverage for mental health care and substance abuse treatment may be available under other government programs. For example, in Alberta, the province provides funding for mental health care through Alberta Health Services.[118] Most or all provinces and territories offer government-funded drug and alcohol addiction rehabilitation, although waiting lists may exist.[119] The cost of treatment by a psychologist or psychotherapist in Canada has been cited as a contributing factor in the high suicide rate among first responders such as police officers, EMTs and paramedics. According to a CBC report, some police forces "offer benefits plans that cover only a handful of sessions with community psychologists, forcing those seeking help to join lengthy waiting lists to seek free psychiatric assistance."[120]
Some people think that not having health insurance will have adverse consequences for the health of the uninsured. On the other hand, some people believe that children and adults without health insurance have access to needed health care services at hospital emergency rooms, community health centers, or other safety net facilities offering charity care. Some observers note that there is a solid body of evidence showing that a substantial proportion of U.S. health care expenditures is directed toward care that is not effective and may sometimes even be harmful. At least for the insured population, spending more and using more health care services does not always yield better health outcomes or increase life expectancy.
A health care sharing ministry is an organization in the United States that facilitates sharing of health care costs among individual members, in the United States, who have common ethical or religious beliefs. A health care sharing ministry does not use actuaries, does not accept risk or make guarantees, and does not purchase reinsurance policies on behalf of its members. Members of health care sharing ministries are exempt from the individual mandate requirement of the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare (the individual shared responsibility provision was repealed in December 2017, effective in 2019). This means members of health care sharing ministries are not required to have insurance as outlined in the individual mandate.
Orbinski was a co-founder of McMaster University's Health Reach Program that investigates and promotes the health of children in war zones, and he was a founding member of MSF Canada in 1990. In 2004, he co-founded Dignitas International, a hybrid medical/research non-government organization focusing on transforming global health for the most vulnerable. Dignitas remains at the forefront of addressing chronic and extreme humanitarian vulnerability to HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. It is also committed to continuing to improve health systems and the quality of patient care, and to the transformational power of research. Through a 12 year partnership with the Malawi Ministry of Health, more than 1.4 million people have been tested for HIV infection, and more than 270,000 people have been started on treatment for AIDS in three hospitals and in 165 remote village based clinics in the southern region of Malawi. Dignitas trains more than 500 Malawian health care workers a year, and maintains an extensive and ongoing research platform. It has published more than fifty major research papers, many of which have transformed patient care, health systems, and health policy. As of 2014 and in partnership with the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, and the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority, Dignitas has also established an Aboriginal Health Partners Program focused on the health needs of First Nations Communities in Northern Ontario, Canada. Since 2017, Dignitas has committed to exploring, defining and participating in a research collaboration on the health impacts of climate change.
As per the Constitution of Canada, health care is mainly a provincial government responsibility in Canada (the main exceptions being federal government responsibility for services provided to aboriginal peoples covered by treaties, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the armed forces, and Members of Parliament). Consequently, each province administers its own health insurance program. The federal government influences health insurance by virtue of its fiscal powers – it transfers cash and tax points to the provinces to help cover the costs of the universal health insurance programs. Under the Canada Health Act, the federal government mandates and enforces the requirement that all people have free access to what are termed "medically necessary services," defined primarily as care delivered by physicians or in hospitals, and the nursing component of long-term residential care. If provinces allow doctors or institutions to charge patients for medically necessary services, the federal government reduces its payments to the provinces by the amount of the prohibited charges. Collectively, the public provincial health insurance systems in Canada are frequently referred to as Medicare. This public insurance is tax-funded out of general government revenues, although British Columbia and Ontario levy a mandatory premium with flat rates for individuals and families to generate additional revenues - in essence, a surtax. Private health insurance is allowed, but in six provincial governments only for services that the public health plans do not cover (for example, semi-private or private rooms in hospitals and prescription drug plans). Four provinces allow insurance for services also mandated by the Canada Health Act, but in practice there is no market for it. All Canadians are free to use private insurance for elective medical services such as laser vision correction surgery, cosmetic surgery, and other non-basic medical procedures. Some 65% of Canadians have some form of supplementary private health insurance; many of them receive it through their employers. Private-sector services not paid for by the government account for nearly 30 percent of total health care spending.
The Canada Health Act of 1984 "does not directly bar private delivery or private insurance for publicly insured services," but provides financial disincentives for doing so. "Although there are laws prohibiting or curtailing private health care in some provinces, they can be changed," according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.[118][119] The legality of the ban was considered in a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled in Chaoulli v. Quebec that "the prohibition on obtaining private health insurance, while it might be constitutional in circumstances where health care services are reasonable as to both quality and timeliness, is not constitutional where the public system fails to deliver reasonable services." The appellant contended that waiting times in Quebec violated a right to life and security in the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The Court agreed, but acknowledged the importance and validity of the Canada Health Act, and at least four of the seven judges explicitly recognized the right of governments to enact laws and policies that favour the public over the private system and preserve the integrity of the public system.
The Canada Health Act, which sets the conditions with which provincial/territorial health insurance plans must comply if they wish to receive their full transfer payments from the federal government, does not allow charges to insured persons for insured services (defined as medically necessary care provided in hospitals or by physicians). Most provinces have responded through various prohibitions on such payments. This does not constitute a ban on privately funded care; indeed, about 30% of Canadian health expenditures come from private sources, both insurance and out-of-pocket payments.[91] The Canada Health Act does not address delivery. Private clinics are therefore permitted, albeit subject to provincial/territorial regulations, but they cannot charge above the agreed-upon fee schedule unless they are treating non-insured persons (which may include those eligible under automobile insurance or worker's compensation, in addition to those who are not Canadian residents), or providing non-insured services. This provision has been controversial among those seeking a greater role for private funding.
Following World War II, universal health care systems began to be set up around the world. On July 5, 1948, the United Kingdom launched its universal National Health Service. Universal health care was next introduced in the Nordic countries of Sweden (1955), Iceland (1956), Norway (1956), Denmark (1961), and Finland (1964). Universal health insurance was then introduced in Japan (1961), and in Canada through stages, starting with the province of Saskatchewan in 1962, followed by the rest of Canada from 1968 to 1972. The Soviet Union extended universal health care to its rural residents in 1969. Italy introduced its "Servizio Sanitario Nazionale" (National Health Service) in 1978. Universal health insurance was implemented in Australia beginning with the "Medibank" system which led to universal coverage under the Medicare system.
Although Spain does have universal health care, it is not the only source of protection available to the Spanish people. In fact, there are three alternatives to relying solely on the provided universal health care: substitutive voluntary health insurance, complementary voluntary health insurance, and supplementary voluntary health insurance. People who work in Spain's public sector are free to opt out of universal health care entirely if they agree to utilize the alternative: a government-subsidized health insurance called MUFACE. This selection of using different health insurance instead of Spain's universal health care is an example of substitutive voluntary health insurance.