Posts Tagged ‘budget’

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For years, child advocate Irwin Elman has been a voice for the voiceless. That voice has now been silenced

Sunday, April 28th, 2019

… with the Ford government’s decision last fall… tens of thousands of Ontario’s most vulnerable children and youth will lose the sympathetic ear — and advocacy — of several dozen staff dedicated to their well-being. These kids include First Nations children and youth, those seeking or receiving services from children’s aid societies, children’s mental health and youth criminal justice systems and those with disabilities or attending provincial schools for the deaf, blind and developmentally disabled.

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Ontario’s health system needs change. But has Ford got it right?

Friday, April 26th, 2019

In the next layer, you will find 10 public-health organizations, down from 35, and 10 ambulance organizations, down from 59. One might have thought that these 10 new service areas might have been married up with 10 health regions, but alas, no… it’s still a simpler structure than what it replaced. What’s not yet known is how the Ford health-care regime will work in real life and how it will get local health professionals to work together.

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Cutting out-of-country OHIP coverage is wrong and pointless

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

… the government paid out just $9 million last year for emergency coverage… a tiny fraction of one percentage point, of overall Ontario medical spending of $63.5 billion (with a b)… The government’s argument is that the existing program covers only a fraction of medical costs abroad. On that it’s correct… And it’s a gift to private insurers who no doubt will see a spike in business if all out-of-country coverage is yanked away.

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Doug Ford’s OHIP move strikes at the heart of medicare

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

In the case of those who are “temporarily absent” from the country, the Canada Health Act reads as follows: “Where the insured services are provided out of Canada, payment is made on the basis of the amount that would have been paid by the province for similar services rendered in the province.” … By attacking the key principle of portability — the notion that Canadian residents take their health insurance with them wherever they go — it is aiming a dagger at medicare’s throat.

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Public health squeeze is the unkindest cut of all from Ford

Tuesday, April 23rd, 2019

… this government’s method is to initially claim there are no cuts and then create confusion about what cuts it’s making and why. It leaves people on the ground scrambling to figure out what it means and when they say it means something terrible, as they have in this case, the government promptly denies it… It’s the province that’s sowing confusion, acting without consultation and downloading its health responsibilities onto municipalities…

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Psychiatrists shouldn’t have a monopoly over psychotherapy

Monday, April 22nd, 2019

An average of 57 sessions of CBT over the course of approximately one year delivered the exact same clinical outcome as 234 sessions of psychoanalytic psychotherapy delivered over four years. The implications of this study are huge… Although psychiatrists do have some special advantages when they integrate psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy treatment together, they do not have a monopoly on delivering effective psychotherapy.

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There’s nothing moderate about this Ontario budget

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

… the cuts are large. But so, too, are the tax cuts that rob the province of billions… the government took billions of dollars from the budget. That lost revenue, plus new corporate tax breaks, will drain an average of $3.6 billion a year from provincial coffers over the next three years. That money could have stayed in vital programs; it could have reduced the deficit. It did neither… But as a public relations exercise designed to conceal bad news, the budget did its job.

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Ontario’s cuts to legal aid will hurt the poorest

Saturday, April 20th, 2019

It’s hard to fathom the fallout from the Ford government’s short-sighted decision to slash Legal Aid Ontario’s already inadequate budget by 30 per cent. The agency, established to provide legal services to the province’s most vulnerable citizens, was struggling to meet the need even before this. Its budget was so squeezed, in fact, that it could represent only people who are making less than about $17,000 a year. That’s far below the poverty line.
Even then, coverage was limited.

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Designation Process for Ontario Health Teams

Friday, April 19th, 2019

… a new model to integrate care and funding that will enable patients, families, communities and providers to better work together… will be referred to below) as “Ontario Health Teams”… The purpose of this bulletin is to provide an overview of the application process for Ontario Health Teams… Significant dates in respect of the process for designation as an Ontario Health Team are included…

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Thumbs up for Ontario’s new Childcare Plan

Friday, April 19th, 2019

The new Ontario Childcare Access and Relief from Expenses (CARE) tax credit, initially estimated to cost around $400 million, will incentivize thousands of stay-at-home parents (mostly mothers) to join the workforce, generating additional taxable employment income and boosting tax revenues in the long run. The credit is targeted, mostly, at low- to modest-income families, where gaps from the current childcare expense tax deduction are the greatest… The CARE refundable tax credit will fill this gap, refunding up to 75 percent of the cost.

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