Health Minister Michael Murphy is continuing to look at legislation that will set the stage for private health clinics even as he's coming under fire from the Canadian Health Coalition.

The health coalition launched a national campaign to keep health-care public in Moncton on Wednesday because it argues New Brunswick is teetering on the brink of privatizing health care.

'We don't have to sell our Medicare birthright to the private sector to reduce waits or improve quality.'— Dr. Michael Rachlis

Murphy said on Wednesday the province will not waiver from universal health care, but he said public and private health care can work together.

Murphy said he expects to introduce new legislation soon, which will stipulate who can sell privately-delivered services to the province.

"Not necessarily every medical service will be or has been delivered through the public sector in the hospitals or by publicly paid officials," Murphy said.

"This is all about providing opportunities for the private sector to compete with the public sector for the provision of publicly-funded health care."

Private health rhetoric 'bankrupt': Rachlis

Those words are drawing the ire of the health experts in the Canadian Health Coalition, which opposes for-profit health care.

Dr. Michael Rachlis, a health expert with the coalition, said Murphy's prescription for fixing health care is not what it's cracked up to be.

"This [former U.S. president Ronald] Reagan-era rhetoric that endows the private sector with magical powers has proven as bankrupt as Lehman Brothers," Rachlis said, referring to the U.S. company that filed for bankruptcy in September.

"We don't have to sell our medicare birthright to the private sector to reduce waits or improve quality."

The coalition isn't just targetting Murphy in this campaign. It is also challenging Dr. Robert Ouellet, the president of the Canadian Medical Association, to "stop misleading Canadians about private, for-profit health care."

The council is planning town hall meetings on the subject, including one in Bathurst on Thursday.

"The one thing we do know is that Canadians are very proud of their health-care system. They're very supportive of their health-care system being maintained and we want to protect our health-care system," said Debbie Lacelle, the co-chair of the New Brunswick Health Coalition.