Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
Why not try after-hours care the Dutch way?
Feb. 02, 2012
… the Netherlands and France, have created 24/7 physician coverage. Health care is often provided in people’s homes or at a nearby clinic, not at the nearest hospital… You’d think such a system would be prohibitively expensive. Yet, when it comes to chronic illness management, Canada spends far more than either the Netherlands or France.
Tags: budget, Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
The premiers want more health-care study? Seriously?
Jan. 24, 2012
We don’t need more studies or committees. Every royal commission, provincial inquiry, independent analysis for the past five decades has come to the same basic conclusions about what we need to do reform medicare: * Control spending by limiting medicare coverage to essential treatments that work; * Modernize primary care by moving away from solo physician practices to interdisciplinary teams; * Create some kind of universal prescription drug plan; * Shift money from institutional care to home care … [and] … invest it in palliative care.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
PM’s priorities out of touch
Jan 19 2012
It’s time to take a scalpel to all those useless programs involving education, health care, government services, social programs and the environment. And while we’re at it, let’s get rid of that useless freedom of information nonsense. I sure by now we all know we can trust our government to put our taxes into the things that matter and serve those who matter. / Canadians named health care as their number one federal election issue, yet, the Conservatives have chosen to cut Health Care Transfers and abandon their health care responsibilities.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
The politics of Harper’s medicare decision
Jan. 20, 2012
When Stephen Harper was campaigning for the first time, he proposed a Patient Wait Times Guarantee linked to federal money. Now, however, Mr. Harper is going to give money to the provinces (they got federal tax points for health care a long time ago, a transfer they never mention) without any strings, conditions or demands. It’ll be the first time since medicare began that a federal government has handed money over carte blanche. Broadly speaking, two reasons explain his decision – one theoretical, one political.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health
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The haves and have-nots of medicare
Jan. 17, 2012
There’s an ominous new meaning for two-tier medicine in Canada: rather than one system for rich people and one for the poor, it will be one system for rich provinces and one for the poor… There isn’t a truly equal level of health care in Canada even now. Wealthy provinces have hospitals and programs that poorer ones can only envy. Wait times for certain procedures can vary widely between jurisdictions… The question is: will Ottawa’s new no-strings-attached funding proposal exacerbate the discrepancies in health care that already exist? And does Ottawa even care if it does?
Tags: budget, Health, rights, standard of living, tax
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Premiers don’t need slush fund to innovate in health care
Jan. 17, 2012
Financial necessity is the best spur to innovation, not a slush fund labelled Innovation. But the premiers, even those who had seemed to welcome a unilateral federal funding plan, can’t seem to focus on the next steps to building a more innovative, agile, cost-effective health-care system. Not to mention one of higher quality… An Innovation Fund is not the mother of invention. Necessity is.
Tags: budget, Health, rights, standard of living, tax
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Canadians want federal health-care role
Jan. 16, 2012
The national survey by Ipsos Reid was commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association, which represents the nation’s doctors… – 97 per cent of Canadians think the federal government’s responsibility for the Canada Health Act is important. In return for receiving federal money, provinces must adhere to the principles of medicare as outlined in the Act. Those principles include accessibility to services, universal availability, and portability from province to province…
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Why medicare needs Ottawa
Jan. 16, 2012
Writing cheques and walking away from the duty to improve medicare is not only a retrograde step that endangers health care and the economy, it also reveals a vision of an increasingly shrivelled and parochial federation, where governments look inward and the whole becomes a pastiche of increasingly isolated parts. Here are seven reasons why a strong federal presence in health care is vital to Canada:
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Dalton McGuinty can’t play Captain Canada to rescue medicare
Jan 14 2012
Flaherty’s diktat has sucked the air out of the premiers’ conferences because there is little left to fight about — except amongst themselves. A split has emerged between western premiers who deemed Ottawa’s offer reasonable and those who denounced it as wretched… Victoria can serve as a clearing house for “best practices” and interprovincial brainwaves on innovation, but it won’t provide any panaceas… McGuinty needs to get out in front of the funding challenges in his own backyard: highly paid doctors, a poorly integrated health care system, modest community care and meagre home-care programs.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Brad Wall prescribes collaborative federalism to improve health care
Jan. 13, 2012
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is planning to push his provincial colleagues to band together and ask Ottawa for a health care innovation fund that would provide extra money for projects to improve patient care… he believes the federal government has left the door open to doing more on health care than it is currently offering… the Harper government’s “unilateral declaration” did not foster good will, but he and his officials are not dwelling on that. He said an innovation fund could also help the provinces set up electronic health records.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
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