Danny Williams medicare debate Part II

John Gedded has an excellent piece in Macleans on the Danny Williams health care controversy. He concludes:

"Canada should be looking for ways to adapt, not revolutionize, health care. If the path from primary physician to specialist is shorter in the U.S., learn from that. If, as I’ve been told recently by Canadian doctors, Britain has done better at cutting wait times within a public system, learn from that. If Europe is broadly better at computerized records, there’s our classroom.

"None of these potential lessons, I’m afraid, has zing to match of the saga of a millionaire politician jetting south for surgery. Personal stories are fun to tell. Policy requires charts and graphs."

His observations bolster the case for the universal healthcare insurance that we have in Canada.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/02/24/the-health-debate-beyond-the-danny-williams-story/?om_rid=Ay6UJ1&utm_source=_BLiAUdB77aB2nj&utm_content=ml19&utm_medium=email

Commonwealth Fund, Danny Williams, health care, wait times

Canada lags in waiting times

A new study indicates that Canada is falling behind other leading Commonwealth countries in addressing waiting times for healthcare despite throwing gobs of money at the problem. The study compared waiting-time reduction strategies in five Commonwealth nations: Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand and Wales. The research indicated that England has done the best job of reducing waiting times. It set a maximum waiting time of 18 weeks - from referral from a general practitioner, through to treatment for a wide range of surgical procedures. In Canada the feds and the provinces have a 5.5-billion agreement vowing "to achieve meaningful reductions in wait times" in five priority areas - joint replacement, cardiac care, cancer, cataracts and diagnostic imaging. But there are no firm targets and most provinces do not even agree on the definition of a waiting time.

Harper's Wait Times Scam

Stephen Harper has reached a new low in trying to hoodwink Canadians with his so-called success in securing wait time guarantees from the provinces.Harper claims to have fulfilled another of his five priorities. Well, this boat won't float. The deal does not come into effect until 2010, and provinces only have to promise timely treatment in one of several priority areas:
Cancer care
Hip and knee replacement
Cardiac care
Diagnostic imaging
Cataract surgeries

The Conservatives had promised in the last federal election campaign that they would ensure guarantees in all of the above areas. Their new agreement with the provinces proves to be a sham when you take a look at what the provinces have actually committed to. To take one example, Ontario is promising that by 2009, patients who cannot obtain cataract surgery within 182 days will be given the opportunity to receive treatment outside the province. However, the current average wait for cataract surgery in Ontario is 183 days -- just one day longer than the target. And it's a somewhat similar situation for other provinces. They have picked areas and targets which they already meet.

This falls far short of the comprehensive improvement in wait times that the Conservatives promised during the last election. As Andrew Coyne put it in the National Post, Harper has learned to lie shamelessly in the expectation that the public doesn't care. Well, here's hoping that voters do care and will express their frustration at the ballot box.