AIMS On-Line for early January 2003
Here is what's new at AIMS, Atlantic Canada's Public Policy Think Tank
AIMS On-Line for late December 2002
Two new Healthcare background papers - Improving Canadian Health Care: Better Ways to Finance Medicare, Medicare and User Fees: Unsafe at any Price? Plus AIMS in Maine on Canadian health care, AIMS Borderlines conference and Jack Granatstien comes for lunch.
We Can’t Spend Like this Anymore
Unhealthy spending threatens health care
The Non-Sustainability of Health Care Financing Under the Medicare Model
The Non-Sustainability of Health Care Financing Under the Medicare Model, argues that, without real substantial reform, we are not going to escape our place as the big spenders on health care any time soon.
Expenditure on Medical Care in Canada
Brian Ferguson, Guelph University health economist and author says, medicare’s much-heralded success at cost control is illusory. Simply put, the introduction of medicare did not introduce a period of health care cost control in Canadian health spending.
Canadian health care not cure-all
As Canadians struggle with how to repair our increasingly overwhelmed health care system, some of our neighbours to the south are considering copying our system. They need to be careful not to repeat our mistakes. AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, was recently invited by the Maine Public Policy Institute to Portland, Maine to compare the US and Canadian health care systems and to offer advice on how the Americans might improve upon our experience as they look to move to a public, single payer system along Canadian lines. As the Bangor Daily News reports, Crowley says that, “(b)oth Canada and the United States are only middling programs, we both have much to learn from other places.” Crowley said France, which has both public and private systems providing health care, offers some lessons for those looking to reform. The WHO rates France as having the best health care system in the world. Publication: Bangor Daily News, December 12, 2002