Rethinking the Divided Welfare State: The Role of Private and Public Benefits in the Development of Pensions and Health Insurance in Canada.

The conventional wisdom regarding the relationship between public and private benefits in the United States (especially work by Jacob Hacker) is that pre-existing private social benefits are argued to constrain the subsequent development of public benefits. The development of health insurance and pensions in Canada stands in marked contrast. In Canada, public benefits came to dominate in health insurance where private benefits were already well established before the state entered the field. In this instance, the existence of established private benefits is argued to have spurred rather than retarded the development of public benefits with private benefit programs contributing to a number of prerequisites for the development of public programs at critical junctures. At the same time, in pensions, where private benefits were not well-developed prior to the advent of public programs, the public benefit programs which did emerge were relatively limited and left ample space into which private benefits eventually grew as a relatively equal pillar of the retirement income system. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]