Archive for the ‘Health Policy Context’ Category
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Canada needs a national pharmacare plan
Various studies have pegged Canada-wide savings from national pharmacare at between $4 billion and $11 billion per year, depending on how the program is structured… Canada is, in fact, the only country with a universal health care system that doesn’t also cover the cost of prescription medicine… Savings from ending… duplication alone were valued at between $1 billion and $2 billion. The strongest argument [is] about giving all Canadians fair and equitable access to medicines they need…
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
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The follies of a national drug plan
… federal health-related organizations — such as Health Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health — have not shown that they are able to make these hard choices. We have a watchdog that doesn’t bite, a national health research funder that encourages Canadian researchers to “partner” with drug companies and a technology evaluator that takes money from drug companies in the form of “fees,” thus making them beholden to the very industry they are supposed to assess.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
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Ontario ready to overhaul health secrecy law
A controversial law allowing Ontario hospitals to investigate medical errors in secrecy is about to be overhauled by the government. The act will no longer grant hospitals the power to leave grieving families in the dark over what went wrong with their loved ones’ care… Changes to the Quality of Care Information Protection Act (QCIPA) include involving families in reviews of medical errors, giving families the right to call for an independent investigation into a medical mistake, and creating a public registry of all critical-care incidents that occur in Ontario hospitals.
Tags: Health, ideology, mental Health, standard of living
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Trade deals a threat to Medicare, pharmacare
TISA, as its name suggests, is about services and the core concept is to transfer control of public services from states to corporations, with the transfer being provided by states like Canada and other North and West States but excluding the BRIC countries [which are] somewhat incompatible with the main thrust of neo-liberal globalization… their applications would not only overwhelm the projected savings of pharmacare but most seriously destroy Medicare and replace a democratic based state institution with the antithesis of democratic responsibility, competence and control.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, privatization, rights, standard of living
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Medicare should cover prescription drugs
Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that fails to cover the cost of prescription medicine. Drug funding here is a patchwork quilt of private plans and disjointed federal, provincial and territorial systems, and it doesn’t cover everyone… especially the young, the self-employed, and people working for smaller businesses or engaged in “precarious employment.” About one in 10 Canadians lack money to buy the medicines they need, resulting in needless suffering and aggravated illness.
Tags: budget, disabilities, economy, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
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Provinces increase pressure on federal government for pharmacare
A Canadian Medical Association Journal study in March found a national pharmacare regimen could reduce public and private spending on prescription drugs by $7.3 billion annually. The Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions has estimated up to $11.4 billion a year for could be saved due to decreased drugs costs and reduced administration fees… In all, some $314 million is saved by health-care systems annually thanks to buying in bulk.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, Health, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living
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Quebec ruling boosts provinces seeking to recoup smoking health costs
A “devastating” court decision in Quebec against three major Canadian tobacco companies could provide a boost to provinces seeking to recoup health-care costs from tobacco companies. All Canadian provinces have filed medical cost recovery lawsuits to go after so-called Big Tobacco for health-care costs stemming from smoking-related disease. The provinces are seeking about $120 billion collectively and Monday’s favourable Quebec ruling will reverberate Canada-wide.
Tags: Health, ideology, standard of living
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Positive first steps towards independence at home
Ontario’s minister of health, Eric Hoskins, announced plans this week for change in the province’s home and community care programs… One central aspect of the minister’s plan, to give homecare patients greater control over the decisions regarding the services they receive, is promising. Self-directed care, in which patients and their caregivers get a greater say in provider choice as well as in what services they receive, can transform the way home and community care is delivered.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Ontario budget continues hard line on health care in bid to tackle deficit
… a fourth straight year a freeze on hospitals’ base operating budgets, and… a hard line against the province’s doctors… [they] have left local boards and administrators to make the difficult choices necessary to balance their budgets, insulating the government from the blow-back when hospitals cut beds, wards or staff… They have made caring for patients at home – instead of in expensive hospitals and nursing homes – the cornerstone of their ongoing transformation of the health-care system.
Tags: budget, Health, mental Health, standard of living, tax
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Canadian Blood Services as a model for national pharmacare
… few realize we have also been running a national formulary of biological drugs, providing universal and equitable access to plasma-derived medicine at no cost to patients for nearly two decades… A national, scalable, cost-shared infrastructure and logistics network ensures the right product get to the right patient, at the right time… A system that ensures no Canadian patient is left unable to afford life-saving medication, while at the same time driving down system costs, is not only good politics, it’s good policy.
Tags: economy, featured, Health, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living, tax
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