Canada Health Act

The Canada Health Act is Canada's federal health insurance legislation and defines the national principles that govern the Canadian health insurance system, namely, public admin- istration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility.

The Canada Health Act ( CHA ) sets out criteria and conditions that provincial and territorial health insurance plans have to meet in order to receive the full cash contribution for which they are eligible under the Canada Health Transfer.

Health services that must be covered under the Canada Health Act are determined on the basis of the medical necessity concept under the principle of comprehensiveness. All medically necessary health services provided by hospitals and doctors must be covered under provincial/territorial health care insurance plans.

The federal government passed the Medical Care Act in 1966, which offered to reimburse, or cost share, one-half of provincial and territorial costs for medical services provided by a doctor outside hospitals. Within six years, all the provinces and territories had universal physician services insurance plans.