This study shows that, contrary to repeated assurances from federal government officials, the government has, in fact, recklessly exposed health care to the GATS commercial rules. Matthew Sanger made the discovery that health insurance has already been included in the list of Canadian services which are subjected to the full force of the GATS rules.
Health, health care system, pharmacare
TORONTO -- Despite claims by the Harris government to the contrary, health care spending is not out of control in Ontario, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The study reveals that health spending has not kept up with inflation or a growing population, during the six years of Harris government rule.
Instead, after years of cutbacks, Ontario now has a $4 billion health care deficit, according to the study, prepared as part of the Ontario Alternative Budget project by Bill Murnighan, a researcher with the Canadian Auto Workers.
The claim that health spending in Ontario is out of control has no factual basis, according to a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Ontario Alternative Budget Project.
The research paper, entitled "Ontario's Health Spending: Bleeding Our Hospitals," contains several important findings:
TORONTO-- Even before the SARS outbreak, our healthcare system was under stress. While workers in the health care system struggle to cope with a public health crisis, we should not lose sight of the prob-lems in the health care system prior to the outbreak, or the reasons for those problems.
British Columbians are fed a stream of bad news about our public health care system. But there is one very common health story we rarely hear about. A 100 year old woman, almost totally blind, has all her home support services cut. A 90 year old woman loses her home support services, has a stroke, ends up in the hospital and spends the rest of her days in residential care. A woman in her 50s, disabled with MS, has her home support hours reduced to the point that she has to move from her home to an institution.
In 1997, after wide consultation across the country, the federal government's National Forum on Health concluded that home care should be considered an integral part of publicly funded health services. A year later, the National Conference on Home Care identified home care as a vitally important component of a responsive and sustainable health care system. Numerous studies have come to the same conclusion: home care is key to the modernization of Medicare.
(Vancouver) The BC Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives co-published a major new study today. Without Foundation: How Medicare is Undermined by Gaps and Privatization in Community and Continuing Care finds that access to community and continuing care in BC has been seriously eroded over the past decade. Without Foundation is co-authored by Donna Vogel, Michael Rachlis and Nancy Pollak.