That means we have to find ways to slow the increase in health care costs.
We cannot have health care costs going up by so much all the time, we cannot afford it.
Conservatives cut healthcare funding after 2018
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
That means we have to find ways to slow the increase in health care costs.
We cannot have health care costs going up by so much all the time, we cannot afford it.
Mental floss: Here is something for you to think about . Instead of a huge and ever increasing budget for health care we look at just exactly what we can afford and how much "free" health care Canadians are entitled to. Think back to the medical procedures that were available when medicare was first implemented. Then look at what people are demanding for free today just because it is available. I think providing what was available in 1965 for "free" for everyone is sustainable but not much more than that. Any thing above that you are either on your own hook or you buy private insurance for what ever ailments you might possibly want to, or maybe a bundle.
In which jurisdiction is healthcare 6% of the budget? In British Columbia it is somewhere between 40 and 45% of the budget- pretty close to an all time high right now! :smile:
Again I fully agree with you. I'm not sure how humane it would be given we didn't have AIDS, HIV, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme Disease etc. back in 1965. However you are right, something has to go. I suggest up front user fees at Emergency to be returned when the "emergency" is NOT trivial. That might eliminate some hang nails and runny noses. :lol:
Actually we did have most of those in1965. We just didn't know it at the time. People just died at a younger age is all. Somehow over the last few decades Canadians have somehow got the idea they are entitled to live forever without paying for it.
There are other tings involved with ever rising health care costs that need a serious look at like malpractice insurance cost and the payouts awarded by judges. The number of administrators and the excessive pay the get are only a few.
Absolutely, it's fixable through such things as better lifestyle choices, elimination of $million malpractice settlements. Or if the patient wants malpractice insurance he/she takes out the policy. One tier system isn't working worth a sh*t. :smile:
More Canadian public health coverage needed: Romanow
OTTAWA — Roy Romanow told a symposium on the future of medicare Wednesday that a number of health matters — including home care and the out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs — should be included in the public system to ensure all Canadians get the services they need.
The former Saskatchewan premier and chair of the 2002 Commission on the Future of Health Care said Canada's public health-care system maintains clear advantages over a privatized system, but insists more work is needed to provide more complete care.
"We must lay the groundwork now for including catastrophic drug costs, at least, and bring aspects of home care, long-term care and access to advanced diagnostic services — the areas of fastest rising costs — under the umbrella of public funding," Romanow told the symposium, which was organized by the Canadian Health Coalition.
"Otherwise, costs will continue to escalate — without restraint and with relentless abandonment of those in need."
He said that Canada's spending on prescription medication "now outpaces that of most other (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries."
In his speech Wednesday, Romanow also addressed the issue of lengthy wait times in Canada, saying that a strategy is needed to cut the delays.
This month, the OECD released a health report to gauge the efficiency of health systems around the world. It noted that Canada ranked among the worst of all OECD countries in terms of wait times.
Romanow's appearance at the symposium comes a week after the federal government and officials from the provinces and territories began talks on changes to the 2004 Health Accord, which is set to expire in 2014.
He said there are "two fundamentally competing visions" for how the future of health care in Canada will look. He said one view — that of a private system — sees health care as a "commodity," while insisting the public system is "grounded on the Canadian values of fairness, equity, compassion and collective action."
National expansion of community health centres — with the assistance of new money from the federal government — would be one method to improve upon the current Canadian system, Romanow said.
A national home-care strategy would also help alleviate some of the burden placed on hospitals, he said, by allowing more Canadians to receive treatment in their own homes instead of inside a hospital, when that level of monitoring is not always necessary.
Romanow also stressed the need for better integration of health-care providers at various levels in order to improve health-care delivery in Canada."We need to break down traditional barriers among health-care providers and reform the local delivery of health care through more efficient and effective integration."
He said maintaining the status quo for Canadian health care just won't cut it and said the system must evolve to deal with its current burdens. "After all, we are not fighting to preserve a 1960s health-care system," he said. "We are fighting to build a modern and sustainable health-care system that meets today's needs."
OTTAWA — Roy Romanow told a symposium on the future of medicare Wednesday that a number of health matters — including home care and the out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs — should be included in the public system to ensure all Canadians get the services they need.
The former Saskatchewan premier and chair of the 2002 Commission on the Future of Health Care said Canada's public health-care system maintains clear advantages over a privatized system, but insists more work is needed to provide more complete care.
"We must lay the groundwork now for including catastrophic drug costs, at least, and bring aspects of home care, long-term care and access to advanced diagnostic services — the areas of fastest rising costs — under the umbrella of public funding," Romanow told the symposium, which was organized by the Canadian Health Coalition.
"Otherwise, costs will continue to escalate — without restraint and with relentless abandonment of those in need."
He said that Canada's spending on prescription medication "now outpaces that of most other (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries."
In his speech Wednesday, Romanow also addressed the issue of lengthy wait times in Canada, saying that a strategy is needed to cut the delays.
This month, the OECD released a health report to gauge the efficiency of health systems around the world. It noted that Canada ranked among the worst of all OECD countries in terms of wait times.
Romanow's appearance at the symposium comes a week after the federal government and officials from the provinces and territories began talks on changes to the 2004 Health Accord, which is set to expire in 2014.
He said there are "two fundamentally competing visions" for how the future of health care in Canada will look. He said one view — that of a private system — sees health care as a "commodity," while insisting the public system is "grounded on the Canadian values of fairness, equity, compassion and collective action."
National expansion of community health centres — with the assistance of new money from the federal government — would be one method to improve upon the current Canadian system, Romanow said.
A national home-care strategy would also help alleviate some of the burden placed on hospitals, he said, by allowing more Canadians to receive treatment in their own homes instead of inside a hospital, when that level of monitoring is not always necessary.
Romanow also stressed the need for better integration of health-care providers at various levels in order to improve health-care delivery in Canada."We need to break down traditional barriers among health-care providers and reform the local delivery of health care through more efficient and effective integration."
He said maintaining the status quo for Canadian health care just won't cut it and said the system must evolve to deal with its current burdens. "After all, we are not fighting to preserve a 1960s health-care system," he said. "We are fighting to build a modern and sustainable health-care system that meets today's needs."
How to deliver medicare with less
It is a truism that Canadians value medicare above all else.
But here’s another fundamental truth: Canadians tune out bickering between Ottawa and the provinces faster than you can say medicare matters.
So I’m pleased to announce that today’s column is a federal-provincial-fiscal-free zone.
Let’s look instead at what really matters about medicare, a program for which Canadians never see a bill — yet quietly pay all the bills as taxpayers. With health care consuming about 42 per cent of program spending in Ontario — and an unhealthy percentage of economic output — medicare threatens to crowd out other pressing needs and productive investments.
All the moping about more money misses the point. The media, doctors, hospitals and opposition politicians have long conspired to perpetuate the myth that health care is starved of cash, that more money can cure medicare’s ills.
The real challenge is value for money, not more money. Just because doctors and hospitals have done things a certain way for 40 years is no reason to perpetuate inefficiencies.
For all the flailing from Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan about how Ottawa is imperiling medicare, he, too, is lowering the boom on hospitals in his bailiwick.
Next month, the treasurer will get some political cover from a commission engineering a massive overhaul of Ontario government services, headed by influential economist Don Drummond. Health care is at the top of the hit list.
After working on two recent studies of health-care inefficiencies, Drummond’s reform agenda is no secret: reintegrating the system; and reallocating more money to health promotion, community care, home care and long-term care.
But Drummond’s conceptual elegance won’t make Duncan’s political task any easier. Vested interests erupt in fury when asked to make medical sacrifices.
The Bill Davis government learned that lesson when rationalizing hospitals in the late 1970s, and then-premier Mike Harris repeated history two decades later. Now, Drummond and Duncan are trying to avoid their mistakes.
They are also looking at a far more painful and protracted restraint exercise, one that gets relatively little attention: In the early 1990s, Saskatchewan’s new NDP government faced a financial reckoning when credit rating agencies started downgrading the province’s debt.
Then-premier Roy Romanow resolved to close 52 hospitals and reopen them as well-being centres offering community-based care. He ignited a firestorm.
“It was very, very emotional — we had huge battles,” Romanow told me. “The people didn’t want it because they were used to the way the system operated.”
With no choice, Romanow plunged ahead even at the risk of alienating voters. Necessity, it turns out, was the mother of invention. The reforms took root. And he won re-election.
The lesson: To win the day, Premier Dalton McGuinty must also be prepared to muster political will — and risk defeat.
“If I had to give Dalton any advice,” Romanow muses, “you have to have the will and the determination to lose if you have to.”
But Romanow also offers this advice to his fellow New Democrats as the health-care debate heats up: You ignore Ontario’s debt load at your peril.
“If you’re a social democratic movement, you don’t want your decisions to be made by the bankers of New York or Toronto.”
Drummond has looked closely at the Saskatchewan experiment because it comes closest to a sustained transformation of government finances.
It’s a lesson Duncan has also heeded. The treasurer has taken to telling his fellow Liberals in caucus and cabinet that the prairie New Democrats pioneered an ambitious reform model — and provide an example of how good government can be rewarded by voters in the next election.
Canada News: How to deliver medicare with less
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-holds-lesson-in-fiscal-restraint-for-ontario
It is a truism that Canadians value medicare above all else.
But here’s another fundamental truth: Canadians tune out bickering between Ottawa and the provinces faster than you can say medicare matters.
So I’m pleased to announce that today’s column is a federal-provincial-fiscal-free zone.
Let’s look instead at what really matters about medicare, a program for which Canadians never see a bill — yet quietly pay all the bills as taxpayers. With health care consuming about 42 per cent of program spending in Ontario — and an unhealthy percentage of economic output — medicare threatens to crowd out other pressing needs and productive investments.
All the moping about more money misses the point. The media, doctors, hospitals and opposition politicians have long conspired to perpetuate the myth that health care is starved of cash, that more money can cure medicare’s ills.
The real challenge is value for money, not more money. Just because doctors and hospitals have done things a certain way for 40 years is no reason to perpetuate inefficiencies.
For all the flailing from Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan about how Ottawa is imperiling medicare, he, too, is lowering the boom on hospitals in his bailiwick.
Next month, the treasurer will get some political cover from a commission engineering a massive overhaul of Ontario government services, headed by influential economist Don Drummond. Health care is at the top of the hit list.
After working on two recent studies of health-care inefficiencies, Drummond’s reform agenda is no secret: reintegrating the system; and reallocating more money to health promotion, community care, home care and long-term care.
But Drummond’s conceptual elegance won’t make Duncan’s political task any easier. Vested interests erupt in fury when asked to make medical sacrifices.
The Bill Davis government learned that lesson when rationalizing hospitals in the late 1970s, and then-premier Mike Harris repeated history two decades later. Now, Drummond and Duncan are trying to avoid their mistakes.
They are also looking at a far more painful and protracted restraint exercise, one that gets relatively little attention: In the early 1990s, Saskatchewan’s new NDP government faced a financial reckoning when credit rating agencies started downgrading the province’s debt.
Then-premier Roy Romanow resolved to close 52 hospitals and reopen them as well-being centres offering community-based care. He ignited a firestorm.
“It was very, very emotional — we had huge battles,” Romanow told me. “The people didn’t want it because they were used to the way the system operated.”
With no choice, Romanow plunged ahead even at the risk of alienating voters. Necessity, it turns out, was the mother of invention. The reforms took root. And he won re-election.
The lesson: To win the day, Premier Dalton McGuinty must also be prepared to muster political will — and risk defeat.
“If I had to give Dalton any advice,” Romanow muses, “you have to have the will and the determination to lose if you have to.”
But Romanow also offers this advice to his fellow New Democrats as the health-care debate heats up: You ignore Ontario’s debt load at your peril.
“If you’re a social democratic movement, you don’t want your decisions to be made by the bankers of New York or Toronto.”
Drummond has looked closely at the Saskatchewan experiment because it comes closest to a sustained transformation of government finances.
It’s a lesson Duncan has also heeded. The treasurer has taken to telling his fellow Liberals in caucus and cabinet that the prairie New Democrats pioneered an ambitious reform model — and provide an example of how good government can be rewarded by voters in the next election.
Canada News: How to deliver medicare with less
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-holds-lesson-in-fiscal-restraint-for-ontario
Yep, to just keep throwing more and more money at it is ridiculous. In British Columbia there's one thing for sure............the one tier system simply isn't working. When you try sometime two or three times without results then it's time to try a different way. A limit has to be put on what the single tier will cover. Beyond that the cash has to come from the users. :smile:
We have a mostly good climate. All the really wingy lefties migrate here to take advantage of our generosity.
Compared to the BC NPD Jack Layton would be center-right.
Vancouver doesn't count as BC. It's a bowl of cereal. Nothing but flakes and nuts.
We should be modelling Sweden where they spend 9% of GDP on a two-tier health care system (80% public, 20% private).
I hardly think we need to worry about Medicare; after all, it's only 6% of the budget.
Or so we've been told.
Or so we've been told.
First of all, the tagline of this thread is completely outrageous....there is NO "cut".
http://godscopybook.blogs.com/gpb/2011/12/averting-national-bankruptcy.html
Good piece overall......
http://godscopybook.blogs.com/gpb/2011/12/averting-national-bankruptcy.html
Good piece overall......
Six percent is NOT the portion of the budget eaten up by health spending..........six percent is the amount health spending INCREASES each year until sanity prevails in 2018.
That means in 2018 the provinces will get 140 percent of what they get this year. Then Mr. Flaherty will limit increases each year, tying them to the increase in GDP. NOTE: it is ALL increases each and every year.
In 2008-09, Health Transfers in cash and tax credits to the provinces cost the Federal Government 36.5 billion dollars out of a 237.4 billion dollar total budget. That is 15.3 percent.....NOT 6%.
Not sustainable.
If you look at Sweden and Norway (who are rated highest amongst healthcare these days), they have a two-tier system with spending at around 9% of GDP. Considering they've already forecasted GDP growth at 2%, we will have to settle for the baseline payment amount of 3% once this new system takes place.
That's a pretty huge cut from 6%.
