Harper: Let's Give It To The Provinces

A new report shows exactly want Harper is intending to do with the Health care plan he has for Canada. This report came from a watch dog group that showed that the Harper's plan for health care will only help Ottawa.

Parliament's budget watchdog says the new health-care funding formula will slowly reduce Ottawa's support for medicare, but it will also put the federal government on a solid fiscal footing for the future.

 The trouble is the provinces will have to shoulder a growing health-care burden over the long run and they can't afford to do that without cutting spending elsewhere or raising taxes.

That means Ottawa's share of provincial health-care funding will fall to an average of about 18.6 per cent for the coming two decades from about 20.4 per cent today. It will continue to slide significantly after 2035 if the policy persists.

Harper's plan will only help Ottawa cut spending, and might help create long term fiscal improvements, but at the extend of forcing the provinces to take all the burden. Harper wants Ottawa to be the one that doesn't increase any taxes, and wants the provinces to look like they are the one's increasing the taxes and cutting spending. This plan is dangerous, and if used for to long will allow people on the right to say that universal health care is unaffordable. The truth is this plan makes health care unaffordable, by doing nothing to try and slow the rate of demand for health care. This won't require a huge overhaul, and can be very budget friendly.

First invest in prevention. in the U.S one third of Medicare spending can be saved if the U.S invest in prevention techniques that will stop people from becoming obese, having lung cancer etc.... Two tax fast food chains and soda pop. Use that money to pay for the prevention spending and also for the third part of the plan which is to modernizing hospital equipment.

These are only some of the policies that could be enacted to save money and improve health care. We don't need to force the provinces into bankruptcy just to save money on the federal end. We can reduce the increase from 6%, but only and only if we do the policy above which will help reduce the need for enormous amount of Health care spending.

Flarethy's Bomb Before the Holiday

Right before holidays is usually the greatest time to dumb documents that you don't want to know about. Our Finance minister follows suit with this bad tradition, and dumb the bomb that Canada isn't going to increase health care spending by 6% every year after 2017. Now for many people (including me) we all speculated even during the election that the Conservatives weren't going to increase health care sending by the same 6% like Paul Martin did. The Conservative platform barely had a page on this issue. And the paragraph that is was written on was barely worth the paper it was printed on. It had the most ambiguous promises. Like

we will work collaboratively with the provinces and territories to renew the Health Accord and to continue reducing wait times

 By the way when Flaherthy announced this "Six of them (premiers)  lined up to speak out against the decision, citing a lack of negotiation with two years left to reach a new agreement. The Conservatives love doing terrible things before a holiday break in the hope that no one will notice, but this issue won't go away Harper. This Health Care debate is going to go on till 2017.
The current Health accord increases health care spending by 6%. Jim Flaherthy says he will increase health care spending by Nominal GDP meaning take inflation and add it to GDP growth, and Flaherthy says 3% increase is the minimum increase. 


Flaherthy answer is taking us for fools by saying Health care spending will increase every year. Yes it will but the rate of increase counts! If you spend one dollar more every year on health care then yes health care spending will reach records every year, but the provinces will need more than low increase in spending to reduce waiting times like the Liberals did in 2004 and it worked! Thankfully the 6% will stay till 2018.


Now I agree we do need to think of spending over the long run. I think that our government should look at preventing people from even needing a lot of health care. By taxing junk food and fast food chains the, looking at a national policy to stop obesity etc.. if  we do this the amount of people who will need our health care system will decline and will lower waiting times. If our goverment did this then a MINOR decrease in rate of spending would make sense. Increases like 5%-4%, because wait times will be reduced by the policies mentioned above. So what Flaherty is doing isn't bad ONLY as long as he puts policies to reduce waiting times like the ones mentioned above and our Finance minister isn't.


P.S Flaherthy plan to link health care spending to growth and inflation is good idea, but it seemed like it isn't being forced on the provinces without much compromise. 3% increase in Health care spending is fine as long as prevention is taking care of reducing waiting times. If we battle obesity and tax bad food and have a healthier Canada our Health care system won't need 6% increase every year. 

Economist: Universal Health Care is Good!

A new report done by top economist warns Canada that it should stay with Universal Health care. It states that although Health Care spedning is growing too fast for revenue's the principal of a public health care system should be kept. Him like me is worried about the future of our Public health care system. By 2030 Health care spending will explode and become between 70%-80% of the budget. In order to avoid this catastrophe the study states reforms that must be done. Including using technology for efficiency, billing rich seniors for their drugs and paying doctors on their quality and cost effectiveness. I say that there is other things we should consider. Like cutting back on administration in the health care system, target obesity so that their is less of a need to use the health care system and Tax junk food and put that money into health care. We don't need to privatize our vital public health care system what we need to do is look for efficiencies. Our Health care system isn't broke and wont be broke if we take the necessary steps to avoid catastrophe.

“A great deal can be done to improve efficiency in the system before privatization is considered,” Mr. Drummond says in the report prepared for the C.D. Howe Institute.

Canada should remain committed to publicly funded health care, and not open the door to two-tier medicine, says a new report by a top economist.

Read more here

NDP's Double Standard!

 Jack Layton says that the Liberals don't support a national pharmacare system that is somewhat true. The Liberals support buying in bulk the drugs so that they can get it for a cheaper price instead of each province buying individually. The idea of buying in bulk is a main component of a pharmacare system, but the Liberal party not even the NDP have a national universal pharmacare system in there platform. I support a national pharmacare system. It is substantial cost effective, and lowers the raise in drug prices.a universal drug plan would save the federal government 10 billion in health care spending. (That's enough for Harper to buy his mega prisons). But the NDP have a double standard they are attacking the Liberals for having no national pharmacare in there platform yet the NDP platform on drugs is practically the same to the Liberals. It's like Harper saying that Canada can't afford the Liberal plans for families, and still spend billions on mega prisons and fighter jets (wait a minute). The NDP and the Conservatives are playing double standards accusing the Liberals for not having a good platform when the NDP platform on drugs is very similar and the conservative plan on the deficit makes no sense compared to the fiscal responsible plan of the Liberals.

Read more about a national pharmacare system here
Read more about the NDP on Pharmacare here

G.O.P Want To Increase The Deficit.

The new Republican house wants to now repeal Obama's health care bill that passed last year. This was one of the promises that many Republicans made if they were elected. This of course will never happen, because the democrats hold the senate and the presidency , so no way it will be repealed now. The republicans are hypocrites they want to repeal the health care which will increase the deficit by 230 billion over the next 10 years. this means that not only will the under a Republican government the health of the nation will lower and they will increase the deficit. Under Obama's plan although it is not universal health care it would at least insure that all Americans can have health care insurance. The Republicans are hypocrites when it comes to the deficit. There is no reason not to have Obama's health care bill stay in fact it isn't enough universal health care is what the United state's need. The U.S under Republican ideology will be moving years back not that the U.S isn't already going backwards.

The people "want this bill repealed and we are going to repeal it," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. If it is not repealed, "it will ruin the best health care system in the world ... (and) will ruin our economy."

The new house speaker thinks the U.S has the best health care in the world that is false. According to the WHO (World Health Organization) ranks the U.S 37 on the best health care system. Canada is 30th 1st is France. The U.S is behind Costa Rica.

Legislation being pushed by House Republicans to repeal President Barack Obama's health care overhaul will add $230 billion to the federal debt by 2021, according to an analysis released Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Read more here

Doctor Discrimination in Quebec

The Globe hits the bullseye on this one. In today's paper, there is an editorial criticizing the way foreign applicants for residency programs are accepted and rejected. In fact, of the foreign doctors who had passed medical equivalence exams in Quebec, two thirds did not get residency positions. This is unacceptable when there were 85 positions free and there is a shortage of general practitioners. Quebec should move to have more and more foreign-trained doctors working in our hospitals. We need them.

Quebec, a province with a critical shortage of family doctors, discriminates against foreign-trained physicians and makes it difficult for them to become medical residents, the final step to gain a licence to practise medicine. It is a habit that needs to end. In the global competition for talent, Quebec will lose out.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Related articles

• Foreign-trained MDs hit wall of bias in Quebec, rights agency finds (theglobeandmail.com)
• Que. schools deny foreign-trained MDs residencies (cbc.ca)

Liberal Family Care Plan

The Liberals have introduced a new Family Care plan. This will allow relatives to care for their own family without having to worry about money. This is not only good for caregivers who are always short on change, but also for our healthcare system. With family members able to provide care for each other without severe financial loss, the strain on our healthcare system will be greatly reduced. This is a great initiative for Canada. However, Harper has already changed the channel, saying that a picture of someone smoking in the brochure meant that the Liberals support smoking. That's classic Tory. Changing the topic to avoid their shortcomings. A good response to this excuse for an argument: Liberals care for all Canadians, whether they smoke or not.

Liberals believe family caregivers need to be cared for too. Canadians want choices when it comes to caring for their loved ones, and need help to ease the challenges of family care. That’s why we’ve proposed the Liberal Family Care Plan.

Read more at Liberal.ca.

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• Liberals pledge $1-billion to help families care for ailing relatives (theglobeandmail.com)
• Liberals unveil $1B home care plan (thestar.com)
• Michael Ignatieff and the vanishing cigarette (theglobeandmail.com)

Technology will save lives.

This issue can be ignored for much longer, because we need to have a patient computer base available to all doctors. When someone goes to a doctor with a problem he first must write out a form, and he has to write the same form every single time he comes back. With this the patient is tested again to see what he has. We should have a system that if a person goes into the hospital they already know he is diabetic and needs medical attention. We have a phone book that tells use everyone's phone number and we have a database for every car in Canada. Then why not for the more important issue are health? It saves paper, less need for repetitive tests ,helps are doctors with less time wasting per patient and makes are visit fast and much more pleasant.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Watchdog issues urgent call for electronic health records (theglobeandmail.com)

It is time for a national pharmacare system.

Now why does Canada need to change to a National Pharmacare system? What is wrong with our current system? The current system gives better benefits depending on where you live. That means that if you live in British Columbia you could have better drug plan than if you live in Nova Scotia. I think any system that gives you a better drug plan only because you where born somewhere is a system that needs to be fixed. A National Pharmacare system would cover all drugs for everyone. Then you would say oh here come the taxes for it, but actually the Government would save 10 billion dollars a National Pharmacare. In fact if in a National Pharmacare plan we will need less doctors , because people no matter how rich will be able to afford all there drugs so they don't get sick as much. It gives more money to struggling families that can now afford to spend more money in our economy(59% of Canadians are living paycheck to paycheck). So with all these great benefits what are Canadians waiting for.

The report also finds that Canada is either the third or fourth most expensive country for brand-name drugs every year — after the United States, Switzerland and Germany — because it deliberately inflates drug prices in order to attract pharmaceutical investment. 

"Canada’s pharmaceutical policies are a total failure," the study's author, Marc-André Gagnon, told reporters on Monday in Ottawa. 

A universal prescription drug plan could chop more than $10 billion off Canada's annual health-care bill, according to a new policy study that its authors say "explodes the fallacy" that such a plan is unaffordable.

Read more here

A Good Decision on the new MS Treatment

Yves Bolduc, the Quebec health minister has decided to fund a clinical trial of the new treatment for multiple sclerosis. Even though those who have been treated with it have reported good results, there hasn't been any scientific study done on this besides the one done by the person who discovered the treatment. Those with MS should be able to live as normal as they can. However, this "cure" could have side-effects we do not know about yet. Therefore, it is a good idea to fund a study as soon as possible so we will be able to decide whether this procedure works and is not dangerous.

Quebec's health minister says he's ready to join other provinces in a national clinical trial of a controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Yves Bolduc says he's very open to Quebec collaborating on clinical studies, adding he will ask his own experts to provide him with an opinion.

Manitoba Health Minister Theresa Oswald has written a letter to provincial, federal and territorial health ministers seeking their support.

She has called for a pan-Canadian randomized clinical trial of the efficacy of the so-called liberation procedure.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Canadians Live Longer Lives

A new study has shown that Canadians are healthier and live longer than Americans. That was a bit obvious as we have universal health care. It's a bit weird that Americans are fighting against socializing health care. They should really get to know the truth and the greatness of providing care for the fellow human beings. Health care is a human right.

Canadians tend to lead longer, healthier lives than Americans on average, say researchers who point to lack of universal health care in the U.S. as one reason.

The study in Thursday's online issue in BioMed Central's journal Population Health Metrics was based on data from the 2002-03 Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health, which offered comparable data on the health of the population in both countries.

Read more at CBC.

U.S health care is not baby killing

If you can remember when the health care debate in the U.S., it started in the summer. You remember all those people who screamed at the congressman or woman's "baby killer." I would like to say that Nancy Pelosi, Obama have stated again and again that the health care bill will not give money for abortion. I think that in the health care bill people who can die if they try to keep the baby should have a free abortion because they may die, but under no circumstances should someone who will not die from abortion should have to pay from their pockets and not the tax payers pockets.

Welcome to the 21st century

Last night, a health care bill passed in the United States of America. With a vote of  219-212 the bill will move onto the senate. In the senate, if they just vote on the bill itself and make no changes it will be voted on. In the senate they only need 51 votes and no more. The democrats have more than 51 yes votes. After that it will go to the president to be signed, and the health care issue in the U.S. that has been delayed for 98 years will be saved. The problem for Obama is even now that the health care bill has passed the question is now will the Americans see the benefits of this bill soon enough for Obama to keep his big majorities in the house and senate.This is histroric and I would want to see this bill passed as soon as possible. There will not be any Americans denied health care because of pre-existing conditions and 31 million americans will now have health care insurance.

We Have the Votes

The healthcare bill is going to be passed! We have the 216 votes needed to pass it in the House. After that, the Senate. This is a historic and brave step for Obama and the Democrats to be taking. In the future, the next presidents should further this goal of caring for the citizens and make a public system available to all taxpayers. This way, everyone gets cured.

“This bill is going to go through,” Representative Bart Stupak, the leader of the anti-abortion group, told reporters as he announced the deal with the White House. “We are well past 216.”

Stupak, who was joined at his announcement by six other abortion rights opponents, said he was satisfied Obama’s executive order would ensure current law banning the use of federal funds for abortion would not change under the healthcare overhaul.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Democrats+healthcare+bill+passage/2709100/story.html

The Final Run

Obama and the democrats in Washington have decided that they will do something called Reconciliations. What this means is that in order to pass the bill you do not need 60 out of the 100 votes to pass this bill. The problem with this way is that it takes longer time untill you can vote on it unlike the regular way. Time the president may not have considering a political up rise with the tea party movement and the criticism that he has spend to much time on health care. I personally believe that this is how it should work always a 51 majority rules bases. The funny thing is that in 2001 when democrats apposed the tax cuts of Bush. the republican use reconciliation to pass it, and democrats scowled at them for using "sneaky tricks", but the Republicans say that they believe that a 51 majority rules does work. Then on Obama Health care Democrats have changed their tunes and said they believe in majority rules, but Republicans are screaming at the president that he is "cheating the system". It all seems as politics as usual on Capitol Hill.