privatization « Social Policy in Ontario

Posts Tagged ‘privatization’

Supreme Court of Canada won’t hear appeal involving private health care

Thursday, April 6th, 2023

Two Vancouver private health facilities and four patients argued that provisions of the Medicare Protection Act violate their constitutional rights due to long waits for care in B.C.’s publicly funded system… Justice John Steeves said in the original court ruling that while long waits for care might increase the risk to some patients, the provisions were justified by the overall objective of supporting a system where access to health care is based on need, not the ability to pay.

Tags: Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, rights
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »

The remedies for Ontario’s ailing health system

Monday, March 6th, 2023

… the quiet crisis of closed ERs in Ontario’s more remote communities should be another wake-up call. Beyond the ER crisis is the shortage of family doctors who would lighten that ER load… about 2.2 million Ontario residents were without a family doctor… The emphasis has been on creating primary-care teams… [but] about 75 per cent of family doctors function without such teams in place.

Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »

Ontario: Brutal under-funding punishes health and education

Friday, March 3rd, 2023

What’s happening in health care, education, and other services tells a story of a government that simply refuses to invest in the services Ontarians need… The current crisis in Ontario health care stems not only from the pandemic, but also from bad public policy… coupled with tax cuts that have been implemented, it results in a shrinking public sector and weakened public services. That opens the door to increased private profit-making off of the public services that Ontarians hold dear.

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »

The truth (and the costs) behind public payment for private surgeries

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023

While the provinces should be applauded for funding more surgical procedures, why restrict new funding solely to private enterprises, when many public hospitals have capacity to provide more surgery with additional funding? There is no compelling business reason, especially if both private and public facilities will be paid at the same rate.

Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »

In health care it is not privatization to fear, it’s profitization

Thursday, February 16th, 2023

Despite the evidence, Ford has permitted more for-profits in long-term care, home care, acute care, primary care, and child care. It is not impossible to reverse the corporatization of profits in health care, but trade rules, contracts and other corporate protections can make it difficult and expensive… We don’t need an action plan for corporate profit and control, using public money. We need to improve the public system.

Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization
Posted in Health Policy Context | No Comments »

Health care transformation is needed next

Monday, February 13th, 2023

… while [the provinces] have their hands extended to Ottawa. A majority of them are in surplus, or can see a surplus just over the horizon, but the provincial share of health funding has barely kept up with pandemic-era inflation… [Ford’s] Progressive Conservative government will have $12.5 billion in “excess funds” available over the next three years and is shortchanging health care by $5 billion.

Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »

COVID ‘blank cheque’: Report finds large corporations spent billions on dividends and share buybacks while receiving government wage subsidies

Friday, February 10th, 2023

Canadians For Tax Fairness found 37 corporations that had received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and spent a total of $81.3 billion on dividends, $41.1 billion on share buybacks and $51.1 billion on taking over other companies… up to $9.9 billion may have gone to companies which weren’t eligible to receive it… some kind of clawback mechanism is needed, either for this time around, or when designing future programs.

Tags: budget, economy, Health, privatization, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »

Ontario needs to invest in the non-profit business model for health and social services

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023

In Canada, we have a long tradition of non-profits working in partnership with governments to build community infrastructure and provide services. But for the past 20 years, for-profit corporations have been taking over these services and the results have been disastrously poor, including short cuts in service provision and understaffing… Accessibility is top-of mind as service provision is based on community needs, regardless of ability to pay or complexity of care.

Tags: budget, ideology, privatization
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »

Queen’s Park must pull its weight on health care spending

Wednesday, February 8th, 2023

… the FAO says. Under current plans, funding for health care over the next three years will be $5 billion less than what is needed just to maintain existing programs… it now appears that any bilateral deal between Ontario and Canada will require that the province at least maintain current spending levels (presumably adjusted for inflation). That’s not a high bar. Ottawa could do more, especially when it comes to blocking provincial plans to siphon public dollars into private profits.

Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »

Doug Ford’s private surgery plan is driven by ideology not innovation

Sunday, January 22nd, 2023

… the government will expect the private facilities to take it upon themselves to prevent the luring of medical professionals from the public system. The foxes will be charged with guarding the henhouse… When the auditor general can find widespread abuse in the current limited private surgery sector, we can only shudder at what she’s likely to see after the government implements its plan to vastly expand private, for-profit surgeries.