Canada could take health-care lessons from Europe, Australia: study
Monday, November 28th, 2011
Nov 28, 2011
There seems little evidence that allowing a purely private tier of health care would do much to contain costs or improve service, but a lot could be done short of that… Canada learn from the several European countries that ensure universality, but allow people to buy health insurance… to cover all or part of their care… such a system encourages patients and doctors to better manage their health… the country should move from a culture where patients are told what treatment they can or cannot have, to one where they direct their own care
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »
Doctors see fewer patients in move to end fees
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
Jul 20, 2011
The latest National Physician Survey of 18,000 Canadian doctors showed the portion who receive just fee-for-service has dropped to 42% from 51% in 2004… doctors on alternative payment plans see up to 30% fewer patients per week than their fee-for-service colleagues… the shift to alternative payment has occurred with virtually no scientific examination of whether one system delivers better service to patients than the other.
Tags: budget, Health
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Canadian doctors still make dramatically less than U.S. counterparts: study
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
Sep 14, 2011
Despite recent fee hikes, Canadian doctors still lag dramatically far behind their American counterparts in income, according to a new study that also underscores the wide pay gap in both countries between front-line “primary-care” physicians and much-wealthier surgical specialists… The U.K. also pays its surgeons more than Canada, while both it and Germany better compensate primary-care doctors…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology
Posted in Health Policy Context | 2 Comments »
Is clinic’s $1,000 member fee innovative health care or an erosion of medicare?
Monday, August 29th, 2011
Aug 27, 2011
Dr. Dockrill said she knows of 106 primary-care physicians’ offices in Ontario that are running similar practices with mandatory “block fees” levied in exchange for enhanced service, while versions of the concept are running more or less openly in at least three other provinces… To those who believe in a strong public health care system the creeping prevalence of such semi-private practices is nothing to celebrate… It’s one thing for a physician to offer additional or enhanced services for a voluntary fee, it is quite another to make the charge for such services mandatory
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Ontario’s cure for medicare: snitching
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Aug 17, 2011
Ontario has taken the unprecedented step of setting up a toll-free snitch line for people to report cases of illegal private health care — and says it has triggered 35 investigations in barely a month… The government has ordered 4,500 patients to be reimbursed out-of-pocket fees they had been levied by colonoscopy clinics in the last few years… “There’s no doubt in my mind that people are trying to get around (the law)…. I think it’s really important that we all protect our universal health-care system,” the Health Minister said…
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Low grades for health system
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
Aug 16, 2011
Canadians have widespread misgivings about the system, even while not fully understanding how it works. They also favour using tax incentives to encourage healthier living and eating… – Just 5% of respondents gave the system an A grade; 45% giving it a B, 36% a C, 10% a D, and 4% a failing F… – 55% rated their health as excellent or very good… even though 52% report having been diagnosed with one or more chronic diseases. – 63% favour some kind of tax-based incentive to encourage more healthy diets and lifestyles…
Tags: Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Doctors see fewer patients in move to end fees
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Jul 20, 2011
Many of the government officials interviewed for a 2009 study by a team at Dalhousie University worried about salaried doctors who spend longer with patients — but see fewer of them… Many experts, however, argue alternative payment and related reforms have been a clear success. In Ontario, two million people are now served by family-health teams, where doctors work with other professionals and receive a combination of “capitation” — set yearly payments per patient — fees and incentive payments to do preventive and other enhanced care.
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Study highlights long mental-health wait lists
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
May 16, 2011
Patients with the most urgent needs do seem to get the speediest care, however that seems to mean inordinately long queues for others. The average wait for a child rated as low priority – who, for instance, is avoiding group activities because of anxiety – is 109 days. For a high-priority patient who might have been suspended from school for serious aggressive behaviour, the wait is 29 days.
Tags: disabilities, mental Health, youth
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Doctors decry crackdown on drugs
Friday, April 8th, 2011
Feb 7, 2011
The principle target of the 564 signatories – which includes doctors, nurses, social workers and law professors – is a provision that would impose minimum prison sentences of at least six months for a variety of drug offences, including operating small-scale marijuana grow operations… minimum sentences will serve only to fill up prison cells at great expense, while doing little to protect the public.
Tags: corrections, crime prevention, Health, ideology
Posted in Child & Family Debates | 1 Comment »
Capitalism touted as health care’s saviour
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
Feb. 2, 2011
Dr. Arthur Porter of Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre called for government funding that is tied to specific services and harnesses free-market principles to prod institutions to treat patients better and more quickly… “Our current publicly funded, publicly delivered system creates little incentive to truly innovate… Some critics, though, suggest the idea would create “perverse” inducements, turning hospitals’ focus to the treatments that were easiest to deliver and generated the most lucrative fees, while more complex cases got shorter shrift.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
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