The Prentice government announced that it will restore the use of healthcare taxes so that Albertans can directly contribute to the healthcare system. On the surface, levying up to $1000 per person earning over $50,000 per year to contribute approximately $0.5 billion over two years towards an $18 billion medical treatment system sounds reasonable.
Repeatedly over the past 50 years, national commissions and inquiries have recommended that Canadian medicare include universal, public coverage of prescription drugs. So far, no government has acted on this, creating profound inequities and inefficiencies in our health care system. But more than that: the lack of universal pharmacare is bad for Canadian businesses, large and small.
The health care system in Canada is not always perfect. Mistakes are made, but Dr. Joshua Tepper believes it is critical we learn from past healthcare mistakes in order to improve the quality of services.
Does more healthcare create better outcomes? In other words, do more medications, tests and interventions necessarily result in healthier patients?
It turns out more care is, all too often, unnecessary care.
Does more healthcare create better outcomes? In other words, do more medications, tests and interventions necessarily result in healthier patients?
It turns out more care is, all too often, unnecessary care.
A new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal with health economist Steve Morgan as lead author argues a national universal care drug program would not result in substantial tax increases. Indeed, such a plan reduces public and private spending on prescription drugs by $7.3 billion annually – or by 32 percent.
A federal election could be called any time in the next few months, judging by the media coverage and the ramping up of political activity. Many issues have been crowding into the media headlines in anticipation of the election — but with a notable absence of any consideration of healthcare by our political parties.
Imagine you’re a physician seeing a six month old child in clinic. She has a fever and cough, she’s working hard to breathe and her oxygen levels are falling. You know she needs assessment in the emergency room and requires transportation in an ambulance in case her condition worsens en route. Her family understands the urgency of the situation, but asks, “Could we take her there in our car?”
Modern medical practice is engaged in a battle, not for hearts and minds, but for the conversion of perfectly healthy people into patients, labelled “at high risk” of various diseases in the name of prevention.
Forty is the new thirty. Orange is the new black. And Failure is the new success.
It seems these days that no success story is complete without a failure (or two) along the way: the bankruptcy that gave birth to a successful company; the entrepreneur who lost it all just before hitting the Fortune 500.
