I might add a little something.
I have just started a project to evaluate the transparency of the private insurance market. The study is not yet complete, but we are realizing that, compared to other western countries, the private insurance market in Canada is the least regulated, even though we have more and more regulation requiring conformity. However, there is no requirement for accountability and the reasons for which premiums increase are not at all transparent.
When employers receive information about their employees' use of health care, they have the expense side, but they have no idea of the profits the insurance companies are making. They do not know what the increases will be for their employees in the future. That means that a number of small employers have to drop their private insurance and push their employees towards the public system, which, if they live in Quebec, is obligatory when there is no access to private insurance, or towards nothing at all, if they live in the other provinces.