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What the rest of the country can learn from Ontario’s family doctor payment model

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023

The Canadian Medical Association has named “expanding team-based care” as one of its top recommendations for solving the country’s health care crisis…  The most important lesson of Ontario’s primary-care reforms… is this: if a government is going to change the way it pays family doctors, and pay them more in the process, it needs to put clear and enforceable rules in its physician services agreement.

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10 ways to fix Canada’s health care system right now

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023

Canada’s health care system requires major reform and possibly radical solutions. Here are 10 solutions to these problems that might be achieved without having to resort to increased privatization… In this 10-part series, we will present 10 major problems that commonly arise within the Canadian medicare system.

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Canadians aren’t just adapting to diversity – there’s data to show we’re embracing it

Monday, January 2nd, 2023

… our image of the country, and its demographic reality, are evolving in the same direction. Diversity has become more important to us as we have become more diverse. Canadians are not only adapting to change, they are embracing it.

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Canada’s health care system is stuck firmly in the past

Thursday, December 22nd, 2022

Canada needs to choose a bigger pan. We can expand the dimensions of what health care can provide through pan-Canadian licensure, a national health human resource plan, multijurisdictional data sharing, increased integration of virtual care and team-based care, and by reducing the administrative burden on providers. Any one of these changes could transform the health system, and each… necessitates change in the others.

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Don’t blame family doctors for the current health care crisis

Tuesday, December 20th, 2022

… over the past decade, the number of family physicians has increased by almost a quarter. But working conditions have steadily deteriorated, and like us, many have moved into other areas of practice… we’ve long known that we need transformation of primary care systems, not just more money. Team-based models like Alberta’s Primary Care Networks and Ontario’s Family Health Teams must be supported and expanded… 

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A prescription to ease the emergency in Canada’s ERs

Friday, December 16th, 2022

Opening more doors for doctors trained elsewhere, Canadian or otherwise, is where Ottawa can focus any new dollars it commits, in co-operation with the provinces. That money should come with strings attached by government – to steer new doctors to family practices in underserved areas… We don’t know where family doctors are working, how they’re working, and where the shortages are. Collecting and collating that information… is a necessary first step.

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Provinces want a blank cheque for health care. Ottawa should say no

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

In the short term, the supposed health care transfer would simply go to pay down the debts of subnational governments… With recent history as a guide, much of that money would go to increasing salaries of health care workers, not to improving services… In that light, Ottawa’s position that ties new funding to a national health data system makes sense. So does its push for goals in key areas of reform, including family health and long-term care.

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A basic income would be an unfair, complicated and costly way to eliminate poverty

Thursday, April 28th, 2022

There are many solutions we can work on to eliminate poverty and inequity in Canada. But a GBI should not be one of them.  It’s time we abandoned this utopian dream for pragmatic, rigorously tested, targeted programs that will reduce poverty, provide skills and training and create an inclusive labour market.

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Canadians need accessible mental-health services, not a fight over who can claim responsibility for those programs

Thursday, December 2nd, 2021

For provinces that agree on almost nothing else, this remarkable unity when it comes to avoiding common standards in all future care programs erodes a sense of a nation. A feeling of inclusion comes from knowing that despite political differences among the provinces, people can count on specific standards of care wherever they are in the country.

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Ottawa urged to ban CEO bonuses if company received wage subsidy

Tuesday, January 5th, 2021

[The CCPA] believes that Canada should follow other developed countries like Spain and the Netherlands that explicitly prohibit bonuses and dividends if they receive wage subsidies. It also wants to exclude companies from substantially increasing executive salaries to prevent them from bypassing restrictions on bonuses… The CCPA also thinks Ottawa should introduce a top marginal tax bracket to help pay for the large deficit caused by its response to COVID-19.

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