Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
FRAUD, abuse and errors in government programs had a cost of $136.7 billion in 2015, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In a nation where $2.8 trillion in annual assistance is paid out, that 95.6 percent accuracy rate is not good enough.
A crackdown is long overdue, and some states are showing how to address the problem.
Read more at whig.com
Health care costs the public sector about $160 billion a year in Canada, a higher per capita cost than most industrialized nations. Yet Canadians are not markedly healthier, nor do we receive better care.
The Commonwealth Fund has ranked Canada 10th out of 11 developed nations for the efficiency of our healthcare system (only the United States was worse). We came at or close to the bottom in access to care, timeliness of care and overall quality of care, and didn’t rank in the top three in any of the metrics reviewed.
Maybe our health care system isn’t as great as we like to think it is. How can Canadian health care move to the front of the pack?
Read more at thestar.com
The Canadian government is revamping its advance income tax rulings process and restricting access to its voluntary disclosures program to better address tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, the country’s national revenue minister said.
Improvements to the Canada Revenue Agency’s audit process for multinational and large businesses, together with funding commitments of more than C$1 billion ($740 million) to fight tax evasion, are expected to help recover more than C$13 billion in taxes owing in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2017, National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said June 1.
Read more at bna.com
Demand for mental health care at universities across Canada, including UBC, is growing according to a recent investigation by the Toronto Star and Ryerson School of Journalism.
But some students say the university’s services aren’t enough.
Despite that, the report revealed that many Canadian universities have significantly increased mental health funding, although some are struggling to meet growing the demand.
Cheryl Washburn, director of counselling services at UBC, said in an email that from the 2014-2015 school year to the 2015-2016 school year, funding for counselling services has gone up by over 30 per cent.
Read more at cbc.ca
The state of Ohio is taking five major opioid manufacturers to task—for their alleged role in escalating the epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose.
The companies named in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday (May 31), are Purdue Pharma, Janssen Pharmaceuticals (a unit of Johnson & Johnson), a unit of Endo International Plc, Cephalon (a unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries), and Allergan Plc.
Attorney General Mike DeWine, who filed the lawsuit in Ross County, said the bulk of the opioid crisis can be blamed on the pharmaceutical companies, who are accused of marketing and promoting powerful opioid meds like OxyContin and Percocet, in addition to “overstating their benefits and trivializing their potential addictive qualities,” according to Reuters.
Read more at thefix.com
OTTAWA – Robin Farquhar has one of those wonderful-sounding travel credit cards, ScotiaGold Passport Visa, that comes with six types of insurance coverage — everything from burglary to lost luggage to cancelled flights.
As a longtime Bank of Nova Scotia customer, imagine his reaction, a year ago, when he tried to claim for missed flights after being trapped in Antarctica due to bad weather.
Denied. You’re too old.
Farquhar, 78, is taking the bank to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for what he sees as an obvious case of age discrimination because the coverage is only available to those 65 and under.
Read more at canoe.com
The United States leads the world in artificial intelligence, but lags behind other countries in applying technical innovations to the field of healthcare. Globally, machine learning is used to increase efficiency, lower error rates, and decrease medical costs, but the fragmented marketplace and lack of universal healthcare in America disincentivize adoption of new technology as buyers often prioritize economics over patient care.
Sally Daub, CEO of Enlitic, a frontrunner in providing AI-based healthcare solutions, illuminates why healthcare technology adoption is stunted. “Here the conversation revolves around ‘Who is going to pay for this? What are the economic incentives to use this technology?’ rather than ‘Will this technology result in better outcomes for patients?’,” she explains. Payoff structures may even discourage insurers from footing the bill for early intervention treatments. If insurers don’t approve a new technology, they don’t issue insurance procedure codes necessary for healthcare providers to be reimbursed for services, which means providers won’t adopt the solution either.
Read more at forbes.com
Tsawwassen residents Ron and Verna Neufeld couldn’t believe their eyes when they opened their 2017 property tax bill and discovered it had gone up over 25 per cent in one year.
“As seniors on a fixed income, it’s a little bit shocking to get this kind of increase,” said Ron, 85.
Last year the Neufelds paid $3,269.65 in property taxes but this year they’ll be forking out $4,093.98, an increase of $824.
“That’s approaching $100 a month out of our budget. We certainly did not budget for that,” said Ron.
Read more at cbc.ca
Every aspect of Kris Currie’s home in New Dominion, P.E.I., was designed to minimize energy usage — from the thickness of the walls, to the position of the windows, to the choice of appliances, like a heat pump-powered clothes dryer.
Even the paint colour on the interior walls was chosen to reflect natural sunlight, so no lights have to be on during daytime.
The result is what’s known as a “net-zero home,” meant to generate all the power it needs over a year from the 35 solar panels on the roof.
What Currie didn’t know when he built the home is that “net-zero” doesn’t apply when it comes to the HST.
Read more at cbc.ca
A Toronto-based health-care company that’s been the subject of a number of employee complaints of late or non-payment has received millions in contracts from the provincial and regional governments.
Abira Healthcare — a designated physiotherapy service provider approved and funded by Ontario’s Ministry of Health — is reportedly consistently delayed in paying some therapists hired to work in long-term care homes, a CBC Toronto investigation has found. Some complaints date back almost five years.
To provide its services, Abira — which is owned by Dani Diena and also operates as a numbered company: 2275518 Ontario Inc. — hires independent contractors throughout southwestern Ontario to carry out physiotherapy and other rehabilitation at care homes and clinics across the province. It also operates a physiotherapy clinic in north Toronto.
Read more at cbc.ca