Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
Dealing with health care can be such a headache. Scammers know that, and they hope to get away with your personal information before you realize what’s going on.
Often the fraudster will pose as a government authority to persuade you to provide personal information related to your Medicare or Medicaid account.
A research group says the Canadian government is missing between $8.9 and $47.8 billion in tax revenues every year. The figures are based on what other countries have calculated for themselves and the Conference Board of Canada says this country needs come up with a closer estimate too before it can tackle the problem.‘Governments struggling to pay for services’“Most governments, provincial and federal, are really struggling to pay for services…and they have been for some time,” says Matthew Stewart, an associate director at the board. “The tax gap is one of those areas that we think…everyone should pay their fair share of taxes and it’s one area (where) they can clamp down.”
Source: Canada missing billions of dollars in tax revenues RADIO CANADA INTERNATIONAL
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had a jam-packed day on Tuesday, Oct. 25. He did radio interviews with Rush Limbaugh, Herman Cain and a Cincinnati host, plus one with Reuters and one with Fox; made a brief speech at his Doral hotel in Florida; and held two rallies. And he said 35 false things, a day after tying a personal record with 37.
1.Falsely said federal authorities refused to detain an Ohio illegal immigrant who allegedly committed a murder three weeks later “even though they knew he was very dangerous.” (There is no evidence the Border Patrol or anyone else knew Juan Emmanuel Razo was dangerous; local police said he was sweating and seemed suspicious, but “no crimes were discovered (i.e. burglary, theft, vandalism), and subsequent data base inquiries showed no criminal history.”)
2.Falsely described Canadian health care: “You know, if you look at even Canada, the people come down. When they want an operation, they come to the United States to get the operation.” (It is very rare for Canadians to leave the country for any kind of healthcare. Even according to the conservative Fraser Institute, 99 per cent of patients stayed in Canada for care last year.)
One of my pet peeves on government waste, both federal and provincial, has to do with mental health. This is an area of expenditure that, to my mind, has a very poor scrutiny of its spending. The media and other groups have been for a long time promoting that not enough is being spent in this area because not everyone who needs mental health service can avail themselves of it.
Well, from my research, the reason that our mental health dollar doesn’t go so far is because it is ridiculously expensive per person for care. Just like the recent Epi-pen controversy in the United States, in which the drug company Mylan has raised the cost of that drug from $100 to over $650 in just the last few years, so too in Canada is mental health given Cadillac-type spending for a Chevette-type of result.
Did you know that when a person is institutionalized in a psychiatric facility in Ontario such as Centre for Addiction and Mental Health or any psychiatric hospital bed, that it would be less expensive to get them a room at a major Toronto hotel with full-time nursing support? I did the calculations.
Couple this immense cost with the lack of results produced by the system and you just have one big boondoggle.
People once they are ensconced within the system, even if they leave an institution, are generally placed on community treatment orders which force them to take medications that cause them to be debilitated in life. It should be mentioned that the majority of those who are forced to take such medication feel terrible when they take them and can’t function properly. They are debilitated over time as they experience chronic brain impairment which makes recovery and a normal life impossible. This is the major reason why such people stop taking them.
There is little information provided to patients or their families about the effects of such medications as laws which provide for informed consent are largely ignored by mental health providers.
The bottom line is that taxpayers are on the hook for this inefficient and costly system which really doesn’t cure but only warehouses, either physically or pharmaceutically, those in it.
It is a discussion worth having.
Bob D. Smith is the publisher of the Monitor Telegram
Also published on LinkedIn Pulse
Surgeon Brian Day spends more time in the courtroom than in the operating room these days, as he wages a legal battle against the B.C. government for what he says is British Columbians’ constitutional right to get surgery from a private clinic when hospital wait-lists are too long.
His critics warn that, if he succeeds, it will create a two-tiered health-care system and erode Canada’s universal health-care system.
Source: https://www.biv.com/article/2016/10/public-face-private-health-care/
As health ministers gather tomorrow, we’re again hearing about rising and “unstainable” public health care costs. Nonsense. In fact, Canadians’ public health care spending is going down.
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), in real terms “since 2011, health spending has decreased by an average of 0.6% per year.” That’s a 5% total decrease.
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2016/10/14/tom-parkin-unsustainable-health-care-nonsense
Donald Trump took aim at Canada’s Health Care System during Sunday night’s town hall debate with Hillary Clinton.
When asked about costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, he called it a “disaster.” He then said Clinton’s changes would create a system similar to Canada’s, which he called “catastrophic.”
It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Donald Trump brought up Canadian health care as an example of a “flawed” public system during the second U.S. presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/09/donald-trump-canada_n_12423178.html