Jagmeet Singh says the Canada Health Act could be used to challenge private health care. Could it?

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been sounding the alarm about privatization creeping into the public health-care system.

Recently, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced he wanted to give a greater role to privately run for-profit clinics. These facilities are clinics operated by the private sector that receive public funding from the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) to perform medically necessary procedures.

But Singh says he's worried that trend of using public money to fund procedures in private clinics will take resources from the public system.

He said the federal government needs to utilize the Canada Health Act (CHA), which he said has significant powers to challenge for-profit privatized care.

"And it should be used more regularly and more aggressively to protect public health care," Singh said Monday, speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill.

But what exactly does the CHA do, how is it used and is it a tool that those who oppose health-care privatization can rely on to stop that trend? CBC News explains:

The Canada Health Act, enacted in 1984 after being passed unanimously in the House of Commons, laid out criteria to ensure "reasonable access to health services without financial or other barriers."

That meant Canadians would have access to medically necessary services without being directly charged for those services. All such services would be covered through the province or territories' health-care insurance plan, according to the act.

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It also established a number of conditions related to health-care access that the provinces and territories had to fulfil in order to receive transfer payments from the federal government, known as the Canada Health Transfer (CHT). One of those conditions stipulated that patients couldn't be charged an extra fee for medically necessary services, also known as "extra-billing."

Singh said he wants the government to use the CHA to challenge for-profit care. But there are no restrictions on private delivery inside public health-care systems, said Colleen Flood, director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and University Research Chair at the University of Ottawa.

"So what Ford has proposed, with private for-profit clinics, is perfectly fine under the Canada Health Act," she said.

The CHA does not forbid the provision of health services by private companies, as long as residents are not charged for insured services, according to the federal government website.

"In fact, many aspects of health care in Canada are delivered privately. Family physicians mostly bill the provincial or territorial health-care plan as private contractors. Hospitals are often incorporated private foundations, and many aspects of hospital care (e.g., lab services, housekeeping, and linens) are carried out privately," the website states.