The death of our Health system... one study at a time

There have been a rash of studies recently that attempt to tell us why healthcare is out of control in Canada and what measures are needed to reform the system.  But these studies are not done by medical persons, they are the work of accountants and economists.  In their world everything boils down to money.  Social conscience and logistics be damned... their only metric is cash.  So sad.

A recent study was from the MacDonald Laurier Institute.  Their Director of Research, Jason Clemens, a well written author of studies on everything from banking to entrepreneurship and former Fellow at the Fraser Institute, reaches back to the welfare reforms of the 1990s to come up with three gems that will "fix" our healthcare system.  The basis of his argument is in the statistics he presents.  He tells us that of the top countries who provide universal healthcare, Canada ranks number five.  (How many countries are there?  He does not say.)  He then tells us that in the 34 OECD counties (not just those providing universal healthcare) Canada ranks 26th in access to physicians, 16th in nurses, 24th in hospitals beds, and 16th in access in to MRI and CT scanners.  An interesting statistic would have been to include the per capita cost of all healthcare spending per country, but I guess that is not important?

His fixes?  Let's discuss them in order.

1. The Canada Health Transfer should be stabilized or even reduced, and certainly not increased, in order to bring more direct accountability to the provincial level for the raising of resources used in healthcare while containing cost increases to the federal government.

In this fix, Clemens is saying that Healthcare is a provincial responsibility so the feds should get out of the picture.   I agree with him, as I stated in my book, The Provinces Must Go, a tome much hated by the political class cause it does them out of jobs.  But knowing that the feds will not give up the revenue they use for the CHT, this can only mean more taxes on Canadians.

2.  The federal government should allow the provinces the maximum amount of flexibility to design, regulate, and provide healthcare to citizens within a universal and portable framework.

Anyone who reads the newspaper at least once per week knows that the healthcare changes that are being sought in Alberta are privatization without regulation.  Since that is not within the universal and portable framework, I cannot see what Clemens is suggesting here.  Privatization without regulation within the framework is a fancy way of saying, we own and you pay.

3.  The Canada Health Act will have to be amended with respect to cost-sharing and extra billing in order to provide the provinces the requisite amount of flexibility while maintaining and safeguarding the principles of universality, portability, and accessibility. Indeed, the federal government could facilitate provincial innovation and experimentation by clarifying the meaning and intent of the five principles of the Canada Health Act.

Since Clemens is using the 1990s welfare reform model as his base, let's look at them to discuss this fix.  Ontario's Premier Mike Harris introduced Workfare as his reform measure.  The idea was that if you wanted welfare, you had to work for it.  Seemed a bit odd at the time.  If you could work for your welfare, it meant that you could work... and there was work for you to do.  So why be on welfare?  But then the fecal material hit the rotating device.  What about disabled persons?  What about single mothers with kids not in schools?  What about... What about...?  And on it went.  Turns out it was more difficult to carry out the program than the accountants and economists thought.  Too bad they had not discussed the program with social workers or the welfare recipients before hand.  It that what Clemens is suggesting?

At the end of his study Clemens makes the following statements: "Canada’s national finances are in a precarious state. We face immediate challenges in the form of deficits and rising debt, as well as longer-term problems emanating from ever-increasing healthcare spending. We need to confront these problems with specific solutions. Using the lessons of welfare reform from the 1990s is the key."

The nation's finances are in bad shape so let's screw up the healthcare system to fix it?  The $50 million that was spend on gazebos in Tony Clements riding could have been used to raise the nurse/Canadian ratio.  The $9-15 billion that is to be squandered on F35 jets, with no compelling need for them, could buy more MRIs and CT scanners and still have money left over to certify more doctors.

It is time that the economists took a vacation and left the healthcare system to healthcare professionals.  I wonder if there is room for me at the Occupy camps?

What you throw away is not "lost"

I read in the paper today that a former bank manager in Hawkesbury, Ontario, was found guilty of all sorts of crimes surrounding a rash of home break-ins, robberies (including one at her own bank branch) and assaults that were committed in eastern Ontario and western Quebec... by, mostly, members of her family... against clients of her bank.  Geez.

But what really caught my attention was the criminal's lament that she had lost the respect of her community.  Lost it?  She threw that respect way!  She didn't lose it... she deep-sixed it.

You don't lose something that you throw away!

Unintended consequences

The Harper government has recently made two forees into the labour world at Air Canada to squash the rights of employees.  By arguing that potential strikes at Air Canada would be bad for the economy, they have set themselves up to a declaration that Air Canada is an essential service.  They are saying that under no circumstances can Air Canada stop flying cause it will hurt the economy of Canada.

I do not agree with that assertion but, hey, they are a majority government and can do whatever they want.

But there is a serious downside to this declaration of essential service status and it reared its head in the recent declaration at Transport Canada to threaten the license at Porter Airlines for contravention to the Safety Management System, which "regulated" safety of airlines in Canada.  The SMS, to which it is referred, was the Harper government stab at deregulation of airlines by making safety solely the airlines' responsibility.  As long as the airline filed the right papers on time, the government was happy.  Miss a reporting deadline and, poof, Porter Airline.  Under the SMS, the actual safety "inspections" were the responsibility of the airlines.

But what would happen if Air Canada contravened the SMS to the point that Transport Canada threatened to pull their license?  Would the Government of Canada have to jump in to stop the Government of Canada?  Does this give Air Canada carte blanche to run an airline rife with safety violations?  Think it can't happen?  Remember the Gimli Glider?

Maybe someone should ask PM Harper or Minster Raitt that question?

Unhealthy contradiction on the right

The righteous right has been telling us for some time that smaller government is right-sized government. 

"It's our land... Back off", they cry.  "Kill the Wheat Board monopoly",  they bellow.  "Cut civil servant like useless inspectors (of water and food)", they call out from the grave yards.  "Let the private sector delivery healthcare", they yell from every rooftop.

So why then do they blame the Ontario Liberal government for not watching over a private health clinic and the way they deliver care... a situation created by the cost cutting Ontario Conservative government ten years ago. 

If the government inspected every private clinic to try to catch the bozo actions of the recent one in Ottawa, they would have to hire more inspectors and park them in each and every clinic to watch over the workers.  Random inspections would not have caught what happened there.

So what do you want?  More problems or lesser people?  The private sector is not the panacea that the right builds it up as.

Taube and the Protests

Michael Taube, writer-extraordinaire, at least in his own mind, let loose a thoughtful piece in today's Ottawa Citizen.  His topic was the Occupy Wall Street "movement".  Let's see if we can determine on which side of the political spectrum he resides?

In his piece he says, " Instead of praising the nonsensical ramblings of hippies, outcasts and left-wing radicals, those on my political side should engage the public in finding ways to return to laissez-faire capitalism, personal freedom, trade liberalization and good governance."  He concludes with, "Let the fringe element Occupy Wall Street, if they want. In the meantime, the vast majority of us can Take Back Capitalism and promote the power of the free market for individuals and corporations."

You are right... he is ultra-right.  In fact he used to write speeches for PM Harper.

I do not object to anything Taube says... that is, after all, the essence of free speech.  However I can criticize his musings.

Taube's first mistake is to characterize the protesters as "hippies, outcasts and left-wing radicals".  That's a bit like saying "your people".  It lumps everyone into a group that Taube finds distasteful.  I wonder what my friend, who lost his job at Lehman Brothers because of the criminal acts of others, feels about the characterization.  He is part of the protest.

Taube's second mistake is to say that "The protesters want their slice of the pie, and will simply scream, holler and blather away incoherently to anyone who will listen."  My friend is not protesting to get a slice of the pie, he wants the slice that he had that was stolen from him by criminals.

Taube's third mistake is in the statement, "We've made a mountain out of a molehill with respect to Occupy Wall Street - and some conservatives have aided in the construction."  That is a bit like saying that early anti-segregation protests were molehills and some whites have help make them into mountains.  While the protesters are not a homogenous group, neither are conservatives.

One thing Taube and I can agree upon is that time will tell if the protests fizzle or morph into a movement.  Time will tell.

Trouble with logic on the right?

I have having some trouble following the logic of many on the right of the political spectrum.  Seems that contradiction is something under which they suffer but they cannot see it.  For example:

1.  They want the government out of mortgage insurance, something for which you pay, by folding the tent over CMHC, but it is OK to offer subsidized crop insurance to farmers directly from the government.

2.  They want the Wheat Board to die a quick death so that western wheat and barley farmers can sell to private brokers at so-called market prices, but they want to government to develop more agricultural policy to entice private enterprise to invest in agriculture... as if private enterprise cannot do it on their own.

3.  They believe in the right to own land and do with it what you want, but they also believe that, if you are a small farm owner, you should be cut loose so that big factory farms can take over your land.

The effect of bloggers

I have been active with many other blog sites recently.  Onethe right-wing ones I try to offer a polite counterpoint to the spew that is on display.  Being polite really seems to piss people off on these blogs.  Seems that unless they rant, they cannot speak.  There is a constant undertone of intolerance in the way they characterize Liberals and, in a growing number of cases, NDPers and Greenies.

And through all this, they muse that low voter turnout is the fault of the politicians and their handlers. At no point in time does it even dawn on them that maybe they, the bloggers, and the hyperbolic media may have a part in the problem.

One example was a female blogger who expressed her disgust at the result of the Ontario election of a government that supports "high" electricity prices and "high" unemployment, by declaring that she was moving to Greece.  When I pointed out to her that the Greek government has raised the electricity price 30% in three years and that the Greek unemployment rate was 15%, and that she may not like it there, she seemed to have a mini-stroke with the uncharacteristically short comment, "...never mind"!

Maybe bloggers and the media should look a bit harder into the mirror?  However, they may not like what they see.

The Ontario election is over

Did the result of the election tell us anything?  It would be easy to say that the Libs loss of seats tells us that their decisions on our economy have been wrongheaded and they paid the price for them.  But this was a government seeking a third term, almost an unknown concept in Ontario, so was it policy or timing?

The Cons started the campaign 10 points ahead of the Libs in the polls and ended up four points back in the vote.  But they picked up seats.  This is truly a mixed message so what does it mean?  Did the Cons lose steam, get out politicked or just run an anemic campaign.  Probably a mixture of all three.

What of the Dippers?  They picked up seats and popular vote.  Was it their policy statements, a hangover from the federal Orange Crush or their personable leader?  I doubt it was their policies because no one actually believed they could increase costs without raising revenue and still reduce the deficit.  Orange Crush and leader?  Probably.

So what does this mean for Ontario?  Is Hudak toast for his wooden campaign style?  No.. at least not for now.  Will McGuinty retire before the end of this term, what ever that term will be  in this minority situation?  Probably but not for sure.  Will the Cons do the right thing for Ontarians by supporting the minority government as we lift ourselves out of deficit?  Probably not... in fact, NO.

Will one or more Dippers cross the floor to the Libs?  Probably not.  Will one or more of the Cons do the dance?  Possibly.


Will the uber-right-wing of the Cons, namely Hillier and McLaren, make headway in their attempt to out-right the right?  Only is Hudak is dumb enough to allow it.  Will the nutty-right of H & M try to split the Con party.  Frigging right they will.  Will it happen?  Who knows?  Remember the Reform Party?

Will Ontarians wake up one day as a colony of the country of Alberta?