About Employee Health Plans in Canada

In Canada, health care is delivered through a publicly funded health care system that is mostly free and has most services provided by private entities. However, many companies admit that they struggle to provide benefits for employees like group health benefit plans and health insurance plans.

In Canada, there are no deductibles on basic health care and co-pays are either extremely low or nonexistent. The overall health care system in Canada benefits the individual, as everyone is more or less taken care of by one another. With that said, about 98 percent of all companies in Canada makeup small businesses with anywhere from two to 100 employees. Companies might not feel they need to provide employee benefit solutions, as the nationwide health care system takes care of individuals.

The Canada Health Act, which is a vital piece of Canadian federal legislation which was adopted in 1984, specifies the conditions and criteria with which the provincial and territorial health insurance programs must conform in order to receive federal transfer payments under the Canada Health Transfer. In addition, Canada relies on a provincially based Medicare systems, which are cost-effective because of their administrative simplicity.

At the end of the day, many companies do not deal with employee benefits providers because they cannot afford the costs demanded by most employee benefits providers and in Canada, health care is taken care of because of the socialized health care offered to individuals in Canada. However, companies still sometimes provide benefits to their employees, which entice said employees to either stay with that company or start working with that company.