CHSPR Seminar | Solidarity and the Expressive Function of Public Health Insurance: The Case of Medicare in Canada

Speaker: Ana Komparic, UBC School of Population and Public Health

The ethical importance of universal health coverage is widely recognized, but policy debate persists as to how coverage ought to be implemented in practice, including whether and why it is ethically significant that it be financed and administered through a public, single-payer system. Solidarity is often invoked as a justification for public health insurance. Drawing on the history of Medicare in Canada, this presentation analyzes the expressive function of health insurance and argues that public, single-payer health insurance is ethically significant as an institutional expression of solidarity.

Ana Komparic is an Assistant Professor of applied ethics and public health at the UBC School of Population and Public Health and W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics. Ana’s research focuses on understanding how values and applied ethics inform public health policy, practice, and science, and draws on both conceptual analysis and qualitative methods.