How NOT to shorten the queues for needed surgery (NB)
If your top priority was to cut waiting times for vital surgery in our public health care system, the very last thing you would want to do would be to cut the number of operating theatres and their hours of operation, and put surgeons on salary so that the monetary rewards for a hard-working productive surgeon are prety much the same as those for a surgeon who prefers golf to appendectomies. So what have the managers of the Nova Scotia health care system done? They've cut the number of operating theatres and their hours of operation, and put surgeons on salary. How crazy is this? And before New Brunswickers and Prince Edward Islanders get too smug about this, they should recall that Halifax is an important regional centre offering surgical services to patients from these neighbouring provinces.
Alice in Borderland: Why Canadians Cannot Afford to be Complacent About American Drug Re-importation
The idea that Americans should be able to buy their prescription drugs in Canada, either in person or, more importantly, over the Internet, has been gaining favour with US politicians for some months now. It’s to the point where a number of states have either passed, or are considering passing, legislation that they believe will make this kind of cross-border shopping legal. This commentary explains why, if re-importation ever becomes law in the US, American prices will not fall, while in Canada we will either find drug prices rising to US levels, or supplies being restricted and shortages developing.
East Hants’ Future Lies in Taking on HRM and Winning
What makes an entrepreneurial community? In this talk to the East Hants Chamber of Commerce, Brian Lee Crowley provides some tips on how communities can take full advantage of the opportunities growth has to offer.
US flu vaccine crisis: government health “gurus” triumph again. AIMS in the National Post
If the would-be reformers of the pharmaceutical sector get their way, the whole sector will wind up looking remarkably like the U.S. flu vaccine sector. And yet, according to AIMS author and health economist Brian Ferguson, the flu vaccine crisis was produced by the very policies favoured by those who seek to reform the entire pharmaceutical industry. In this op-ed piece on the Comment page of the Financial Post, he asks, "Any lesson here?"
Ideas Matter #4
Atlantica: the International Northeast Economic Region (AINER) is defined chiefly by geography, economic trends and trade patterns; common problems and experiences; and politics. Much of this wedge of territory has been outside the charmed circle of North American prosperity for years. This edition of Ideas Matter makes the case for why that has to, and is, changing.
AIMS Online, 26 October 2004
Covered in this issue - why John Kerry is wrong about re-importation of Canadian drugs, holding the environmental movement to account, a new weekly TV show featuring AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley, community leadership modelled on AIMS report card work, the ongoing debate about rising education tuitions, more on who should own the sea, and finally the challenges ahead for Membertou Inc.'s successful business based model of aboriginal self-government.