If you like irony, you must love Canadian health care. Consider the recent demand that the federal government intervene to squash the dual-practice medical model in Alberta. You might wonder whether the four former deans of medicine from Alberta who launched the appeal to Ottawa had a strong sense of humour or simply lacked any knowledge of Medicare’s origins in Canada.
The old prairie preacher and politician Tommy Douglas is often called the father of universal health insurance in Canada. Back in the 1950s, Douglas served as the premier of Saskatchewan and championed some significant changes, not the least of which was universal health insurance to protect people from financial peril resulting from a major illness or injury.
