HEALTH AS AN IRREVERSIBLE PART OF THE WELFARE-STATE - CANADIAN GOVERNMENT POLICY UNDER THE TORIES

This article provides an assessment of the health policy of the Canadi an Conservative government under Brian Mulroney, 1984-1993. Underlying this assessment is the need to test the theory of the irreversibility of the welfare state in the light of its health component. The author argues that despite a political rhetoric that might have presaged a s harp rollback of Canada's Medicare, either through residualization or progressive commodification, Canada emerged from this period of New Ri ght federal government with its state-funded health care system still in place. This argument is substantiated through a consideration of th e social policy model inherited by the Mulroney government and how it was affected by the government's fiscal policies between 1984 and 1993 .