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Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Trump ends ‘Dreamers’ program, leaving fate of 800,000 uncertain

Donald Trump thrust the fate of nearly 800,000 young, undocumented migrants into uncertainty on Tuesday by terminating the Obama-era program that protects the so-called Dreamers from deportation.

In response, Barack Obama said the decision was “self-defeating” and contrary to “basic decency”.

A “shadow has been cast over some of our best and brightest young people once again”, the former president said.

The 2012 policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) will be phased out by 5 March 2018, leaving Congress with six months to enact new protections for Dreamers through legislation. On Tuesday night, Trump suggested that if Congress failed to “legalize Daca” he would “revisit” the program.

Read more at The Guardian

Trump tells Senators new GOP healthcare bill is ‘mean’

During a lunch meeting with GOP senators on Wednesday, President Donald Trump called the House-version of the American Health Care Act “mean,” and urged them to make it more generous.

Trump reportedly talked about having a bill come out of the Senate that protects people with preexisting conditions and having a tax credit that works for low income elderly Americans, according to the story originally reported by the Associated Press.

read more at healthcarefinancenews.com

American conservatives love to bash Canadian health care — but U.S. corporations love it

President Donald Trump has been pushing hard, along with Republicans in Congress, to eliminate former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But as he and leaders of the Senate and House struggle to come up with some alternative health care law, they might ask themselves why large companies like General Motors, Ford and Chrysler (now Fiat Chrysler) over recent decades have shifted roughly half their car and truck production — and the jobs that go with them — across the Detroit River into Canada.

Here’s one big reason they did it: Canada’s government-run single-payer health system, known as Medicare — to be clear, not the same Medicare as the American health care system for senior citizens — lowers those auto companies’ health care costs from more than $15,000 per worker in the United States to just a few thousand dollars in Canada, with all Canadian taxpayers, not just employees and their employers, picking up the tab.

Read more at salon.com

What Trump’s agenda means for Canadian health care

TORONTO, Ont./Troy Media/ – Americans face a growing threat to their health. And it could have a negative impact in Canada.

The U.S. House of Representatives recently voted to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA). If the bill becomes law, it could leave millions in the U.S. without care.

Just over a month ago, efforts to pass AHCA imploded before the bill could even be brought to a vote. Now there’s a real chance it could come to fruition, transforming American health care for the second time in a decade.

Why is the issue of health care in the U.S. so fraught? And is Canada immune to the social whiplash underway south of us?

Read more at clearwatertimes.com

A Canadian lost in the wilderness of American health care

When I moved from Toronto to Los Angeles in my 40s, health-care coverage was not a huge concern. I arrived in the summer of 2001, after giving up a law partnership in a big Canadian firm to study screenwriting (please, stop laughing).

I was in the United States on a student visa and I figured I could always head back up north if anything really bad happened, health-wise. But being a die-hard Canuck, I was still anxious. What if I had an emergency of such catastrophic nature that there wouldn’t be time to airlift me home to Toronto?

I signed up for what’s known as “Hit by a Bus” emergency coverage from Blue Cross, for $450 (U.S.) a month. And got on with my screenwriting program.

Six months later, I awoke with abdominal pains so intense I could barely stand, let alone arrange an airlift home. I had a friend rush me to the nearest hospital – Cedars Sinai in Beverly Hills, where all the movie stars go to have their babies. I was not concerned that the place looked more like a four-star hotel than a hospital.

read more at theglobeandmail.com

Trump campaign once again slams Canadian health care

The latest villain of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign: Canada’s health care system.

Trump’s Republican running mate, vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, knocked the Canadian system during an appearance with Trump on Tuesday, following Trump’s inaccurate criticism in a radio interview last week.

Canada’s government insurance program has emerged as a late-campaign foil for the Trump campaign even though he has expressed strong support for it in the past. He has begun targeting Canada’s program as he has tried to turn public attention to problems with Obamacare, a much different program that involves government subsidies for insurance plans purchased from corporations.

Speaking in a hotel ballroom in an important suburb of Philadelphia, Pence, the governor of Indiana, falsely suggested that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is proposing a Canada-style “single-payer” system.

“She actually went to Canada and gave a speech that came out not too long ago,” he said. “She told Canadians and business groups that she wanted to get, and I’m quoting, ‘universal health care coverage like you have here in Canada.’ Well, we don’t want the socialized health care they have in Canada. We want American solutions.”

In that January 2015 speech, at Saskatoon’s Arts and Convention Centre, Clinton did not seem to be suggesting she wanted America to adopt Canada’s system. Rather, while defending Obamacare, she said she wanted all Americans insured.

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/11/01/trump-campaign-once-again-slams-canadian-health-care.html

Donald Trump said 35 false things on Tuesday, Oct. 25

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.)

Source: https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/26/donald-trump-said-35-false-things-on-tuesday-oct-25.html

Donald Trump Slams Canada’s Health Care System As ‘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