Despite promises to fix our public healthcare, after five years, Canada now ranks dead last in terms of quality of care.Dead last.
But what is the Harper government doing?
More tax cuts for the rich.
Polls consistently show that Canadians rank healthcare as their number one priority.
But what is the Harper government doing?
Building more prisons when our crime rate is the lowest in our history and buying fighter jets that no one else will take because they are considered to be junk.
Do you want public healthcare or to borrow money to give to the wealthy?
Healthcare or fighter jets?
Healthcare or prisons?
Healthcare or Harper?
Think about that. I know I have.
Healthcare!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely no fighter jets, prisons, and especially no Harper.
Out with Harper, in with Healthcare!
Macleans should not be surprised by the standings of our healthcare. The very right wing zealots that they support are responsible. Under this present "regime" we have experienced many "new lasts" that were unfathomable under previous governments. We have seen our standard of living hanging around the basement stairs. Our children's welfare and education teetering and find our social status on a global scale reaching a level of decrepitude and despair. If you listen carefully you can here the guillotines being sharpened.
ReplyDeleteBut this eminently sensible, cost-effective public solution has been resisted by some on the right, who argue that the mandatory CPP deprives Canadians of the choice not to invest in their retirement.
ReplyDeleteThis is reminiscent of arguments by the American right against public health care, on the grounds that some risk-lovers prefer to be without health insurance.
Of course, those making such arguments are usually well-off financially, with little risk in their own lives. Still, they fiercely defend the right of the poor to experience the risky pleasures of life without a safety net.
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/898690--mcquaig-public-better-than-private-on-pensions
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Ontario Health Care is not strained
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/887753--medicare-has-a-very-good-month
snip snip: Wait times have plummeted in Ontario for most of the elective services that the 2004 federal-provincial-territorial health accord targeted. Increasingly, many provinces have concluded that public agencies can capture the efficiencies of private ambulatory care facilities. And innovation is humming in Canada’s not-for-profit health-care organizations and care teams.
Putting the last month together, we should be pleased that medicare’s affordability is improving while we make progress in improving access to some services. We can fix other problems like primary health care and community care for the elderly with a similar focus on improved public sector management and service redesign. Medicare remains as sustainable as we want it to be.
Leading economist shatters myth that public health care is ‘unsustainable’; pins blame for soaring costs on private health care spending
ReplyDeletehttp://medicare.ca/
Canadians are being told that public health care financing is not ’sustainable’, and that the solution is a shift to more private health insurance and private delivery of services.
According to Canada’s leading health care economist, “bluntly, this is a lie.”
Robert G. Evans, O.C., Ph.D. (Economics, Harvard), an officer of the Order of Canada, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, recently delivered this message to Members of Parliament during a special briefing session.
Over the past five years, hospital beds in Canada have been reduced by almost 40 per cent nationally." According to the Canadian Health Coalition, there were 64,000 hospital bed cuts between 1988 and 2002 and this has not visibly changed for the better since then. This is not because healthcare is unsustainable but because it is underfunded, at both federal and provincial levels.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rabble.ca/news/2010/10/harper-politicizes-healthcare-it-bad-canada-bad-world