In a move that is sure to stir up debate, the British Columbia Automobile Association is offering so-called medical wait-list insurance for the first time ever in Canada.

BCAA members who buy the insurance will be given access to private medical clinics in B.C. or in the United States if they are placed on waiting lists longer than 45 days.

Product manager Betty Pang said the BCAA has been quietly working on the insurance plan for the last two years, and it covers a wide range of procedures.

"If you need cataracts, you know, hernia, endoscopy, there is like 135 various treatments that are covered under this particular insurance coverage," she said.

The prices of policies range from $35 a month for single adults under 30 years of age, to $225 a month for someone over 69 who is buying a family plan.

Some members have already been offered the plan as part of a pilot program launched in August, but no policies have been sold yet, said Pang,

But if enough members are interested in the trial offer, the wait-list insurance could be offered to all BCAA members next year, she said.

Legality under review

B.C. NDP health critic Adrian Dix called the insurance plan profiteering and a violation of Canada's health-care laws.

"This is an example of a company that's actively soliciting for clients that have the ability to pay for the privilege of queue jumping. In my view, and in the view of the legal opinion that we obtained, it is illegal, and it violated both provincial and national health legislation," said Dix.

"I am disappointed and surprised that the BCAA, of which I am a member, would inject itself into this very difficult political issue, and in fact inject itself against the interests of public health care, and the interests of so many of its members," said Dix, who has long been an outspoken critic of privatized health care.

A spokesperson for B.C.'s Minstry of Health confirmed staff are reviewing the program to determine whether the insurance is legal.

But Pang said BCAA lawyers believe the plan is in line with both provincial and federal guidelines.

Private health insurance has long been considered illegal in Canada under the terms of the Canada Health Act, which aims to guarantee equal and universal access to health care for all Canadians regardless of costs.

But in 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Quebec government could not prevent people from paying for private insurance for health-care procedures covered under medicare when the public system failed to guarantee patients access to those services in a timely way.

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," two of the justices wrote in the landmark decision.

Since that ruling several private medical clinics have opened in B.C.