Dr. Jacques Chaoulli | |
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 Dr. Chaoulli at home | |
| Born | 1952 France |
| Nationality | French-Canadian |
| Education | Paris Diderot University Université Laval |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | General Practitioner |
| Field | Medicine |
Jacques Chaoulli is a physician best known for launching a Supreme Court challenge against the ban in Quebec on private health care. [1] He has French and Canadian citizenship.
Chaoulli was born in France in 1952 and earned a medical degree from the Paris Diderot University. [2] In 1978, he moved to Quebec to study medical education and earned a Master's degree from Université Laval in 1982. Chaoulli has practiced medicine in Quebec since 1986 and is now a general practitioner in France. [3]
In 2005, Chaoulli launched a court challenge against the Quebec government with the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing the Canadian implementation of publicly funded health care was not effective at delivering an adequate level of care. [1] [4] After losing in two lower courts, he won the Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), the Supreme Court's decision on the case, causing a change in the Quebec government's policy on wait times and privatization.
In 2006, he called for further privatization to improve wait times. [5]
A physician, medical practitioner, medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of disease, injury, and other physical and mental impairments. Physicians may focus their practice on certain disease categories, types of patients, and methods of treatment—known as specialities—or they may assume responsibility for the provision of continuing and comprehensive medical care to individuals, families, and communities—known as general practice. Medical practice properly requires both a detailed knowledge of the academic disciplines, such as anatomy and physiology, underlying diseases and their treatment—the science of medicine—and also a decent competence in its applied practice—the art or craft of medicine.
Medicare is an unofficial designation used to refer to the publicly funded single-payer healthcare system of Canada. Canada's health care system consists of 13 provincial and territorial health insurance plans, which provide universal healthcare coverage to Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and depending on the province or territory, certain temporary residents. The systems are individually administered on a provincial or territorial basis, within guidelines set by the federal government. The formal terminology for the insurance system is provided by the Canada Health Act and the health insurance legislation of the individual provinces and territories.
Publicly funded healthcare is a form of health care financing designed to meet the cost of all or most healthcare needs from a publicly managed fund. Usually this is under some form of democratic accountability, the right of access to which are set down in rules applying to the whole population contributing to the fund or receiving benefits from it.
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Healthcare in Canada is delivered through the provincial and territorial systems of publicly funded health care, informally called Medicare. It is guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act of 1984, and is universal. The 2002 Royal Commission, known as the Romanow Report, revealed that Canadians consider universal access to publicly funded health services as a "fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country."
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Chaoulli v Quebec (AG) [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791, 2005 SCC 35, was a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada of which the Court ruled that the Quebec Health Insurance Act and the Hospital Insurance Act prohibiting private medical insurance in the face of long wait times, up to 9 months, violated the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. In a 4 to 3 decision, the Court found the Acts violated Quebecers' right to life and security of person under the Quebec Charter. The ruling is binding only in Quebec. Three of the seven judges also found that the laws violated section seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One judge did not rule on the Canadian Charter. The result was a 3–3 tie on the question of the Canadian Charter, so Chaoulli decision does not apply to any other province.
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