Competition surest route to top quality health care; AIMS in the London Free Press
London Free Press columnist Rory Leishman turns to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley and AIMS Fellow on Health Care Policy, Dr. David Zitner, to explain the absence of publicly available information on the effectiveness of the Canadian health care system and individual providers within that system. The problem, Zitner and Crowley explain, is that in Canada, "health care is an unregulated monopoly, devoid of any performance requirements." The bureaucrats who run the system have a vested interest in keeping the rest of us in the dark about how well or poorly they are doing. After considering this fact, Leishman concludes that there can be no hope for any significant improvement in medicare until Canada, like every other democracy, opens up its public-sector medicare system to vigorous and across-the-board competition from service providers in the private sector.
AIMS On-Line for early June 2002
Here is what's new at AIMS, Atlantic Canada's Public Policy Think Tank
Canadian Aquaculture
Canadian Aquaculture: Drowning in Regulation, AIMS latest report on Canada’s aquaculture industry, argues that the current federal-provincial regulatory environment for aquaculture is dysfunctional and that fundamental institutional change is required if this potentially vibrant and growing industry is to achieve its full potential in Canada.
Ideas Matter
A special publication, released by AIMS in June 2002 in collaboration with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Montreal Economic Institute, providing a summary of our Sir Antony Fisher Award winning Equalization Initiative
Canada could follow Britain’s example on improving Health Care – Learn from Sweden
Health care is becoming more and more of a political issue in Britain. Long waiting lists, poor response and low standards have led to rising popular discontent. The Government is now taking radical steps to transform the National Health System (NHS). Just as in Sweden, “more money” has for many years been counted on as the recipe for putting things right. But the Blair administration has gradually come to see that pouring new millions into a malfunctioning system only serves to perpetuate the problems. And so now the NHS is to be reformed, from monopoly and bureaucracy to decentralisation and a consumer focus. In this piece, Johan Hjertqvist, AIMS’ commentator on Swedish health care reform, discusses how New Labour has derived most of the inspiration for its reform from the Stockholm County Council. He concludes that the efforts of Britain’s Labour Party offer a glimpse of what can be achieved when you move past ideology and focus on the more practical question of what actually works.
Waiting for Voisey’s Bay: Six Years Was Too Long
After six long hard years of negotiation a deal has been struck that will see the nickel ore deposits at Voisey's Bay begin to be mined. In looking at the deal, Peter Fenwick, AIMS' voice on Newfoundland & Labrador, asks why a similar deal was not concluded a long time ago. Most of the terms included in the final deal have been on the table for some time and the public has given a rousing endorsement to the terms reached between Inco, the provincial government and the Innu and Inuit people. Gauging the damage done to the Newfoundland mining industry by these negotiations is difficult. What exploration programs were cancelled, and what promising finds not developed, is impossible to say.