Universality and medical necessity: statutory and charter remedies to individual claims to Ontario health insurance funding.

The CHA establishes the criteria that provincial and territorial governments must meet in order to qualify for federal transfer payments. These guiding principles define the Canadian health care system, which has become the flagship of this country’s social service infrastructure and our most valued social program. The celebrated five pillars of the CHA are: public administration, comprehensiveness, universality, portability and accessibility. For the purposes of this paper, we will focus on the concept of universality in terms of what it means for publicly funded health care as an ideal, as well as a practical matter.