Despite a Journal de Montréal (JdM) article claiming otherwise, surgeries in the private health care system are significantly more expensive than the public system. A new study published by the Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques (IRIS) revealed the falsities used in the report cited by the JdM, which seem purposefully intended to misdirect people towards private care. 

Last week, JdM published a shocking story that falsely claimed that operations for kids in the private sector cost 25 percent less than they do in the public system. They used a study by Yanick Labrie in the Canadian Health Policy Journal. 

The title of the piece takes the side of the study (it’s win-win!) and directly contradicts more reliable studies that show that operations in the private system cost 35 percent more. There are many problems with the study that JdM used, including a biased selection for the study and a “behind closed doors” approach funded by multinational private health companies.

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Privately funded

The biggest red flag in the study cited in JdM is who is funding the study. Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck, AstraZeneca, AMGEN, GSK, NOVARTIS, Sanofi, and Gilead Sciences. All of these companies are multinational companies in the private health industry, and have massive market caps.

This is a table of the market cap of all these companies. It might not appear correctly in email.

Most of these companies are based in the United States. As politicians push for Canadian sovereignty, these players have an invested interest in seeing Canada’s public health system dismantled to undermine Canadian autonomy.

These players are extremely active in our database of lobbyists and government contracts. AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Gilead are all active in Quebec specifically. 

These charts show the number of times these companies have lobbied Canadian governments over the past two years. It may not appear correctly in email.