Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘healthcare’

And for those people who aren’t like the couple below… Canada has decided to allow the “morning-after pill” to be sold over the counter. This just over a week after a similar move was blocked in the U.S. due to lobbying by the pro-life groups who like to slander any kind of birth control besides abstinence.

I’m in favour of the Canadian move. Yes, better birth control education is essential. But there’s got to be something wrong with taking away options for women who are raped, or people whose method of birth control doesn’t work (e.g. a condom breaking), or simply for people who are too stupid to be having kids anyway. A fifteen-year-old who can’t figure out how to use a condom should not be having a child. The medical evidence says that this pill is safe enough to be sold OTC, so the politics should recognize that and not put up unnecessary roadblocks.

Paul Martin’s finance minister, Ralph Goodale, announced the Federal Budget today. And of course, the media began to immediately analyse, spin, and dissect it seventeen ways from Sunday.

So here’s my ten-second breakdown.

Healthcare: Mainly a provincial issue, but very little new money to help bail out the provinces. Instead of spending it on medicare or on, oh, important stuff like equipment, doctors and nurses, and patient care, the government’s gonna create yet another useless level of bureaucracy, this one to address “public health” (like the SARS crisis). Never mind that there are hundreds of times more people needing everyday healthcare. But it seems that there can never be enough levels of waste for the Libs.

Taxes: Breaks for small businesses and aid for venture capital financing. Both good things. Nothing much for big business (cause, of course, the Liberals can’t be seen to be getting too cozy with the devil). Oh, and a big chunk of cash to find “environmentally-friendly technologies”. I guess that’s the only way a Liberal government can fund business. Anyway the most important question is how much more of my own money will I get to keep on each paycheck. The answer? Not a whole helluvalot. Thumbs down.

National Debt: A commitment to pay it down considerably. This is good. The people don’t always see the debt as a priority, but reducing the debt means reducing interest payments, and that can only help the economy. Let’s see if the government keeps this promise. (Echoes of the “we will cancel the GST” promise sounding in anyone else’s ears?)

Defence: Peacekeeping only. Money for missions in Afghanistan and Haiti. Oh, and a throwaway gesture that says that troops don’t have to pay tax on earnings while deployed abroad. Nothing that could be perceived as Bush-cozying or war-mongering. Heaven forbid Canadian troops get planes that don’t need to be held together with duct tape!

Education: Also a provincial area. Textbooks are now deductible for students. And “learning bonds” to give minuscule amounts of money to low-income students… in about 18 years or so. That’s about it.

Stupid Liberal Wastes of Money: Refreshingly few. Of course, these are usually the small-ticket throwaways that may not have hit the headlines yet. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for a “multiculturalism fund” or a “help the CBC produce more aboriginal-related programming” fund increase. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

Miscellany: Money for farmers hit by mad cow. Yeah, ok, that one sucked for them. And I certainly wouldn’t want to have to grow my own food, so I guess we can throw them some bones.

Overall: It’s balanced, so that’s good. It’s not excessive with a bunch of stupid spending to buy votes. So that’s also good. But not enough of the fat has been trimmed, and not enough of taxpayers’ money is being put back into taxpayers’ pockets. That about sums it up for me.

Update: Paul has a one-word summary of the budget: YAWN.

I must have blinked and missed a drastic political shift in Quebec: it seems our province has the “distinction” of favouring two-tier healthcare:

A poll conducted last month by Environics and CROP for the Centre for Research and Information on Canada shows support in Quebec for a two-tiered health care system has been steadily rising over the past three years. While only 38 per cent of Quebecers supported the concept in 2001, that figure rose to 49 per cent in 2002 and 53 per cent this year.

However, the picture in Quebec is distinctly different than in the rest of the country. The poll found 52 per cent of Canadians think governments should increase health care spending rather than allow private companies to deliver health care services to those who can afford it. Only 37 per cent favoured allowing the private sector to deliver services while 9 per cent would limit the availability of some treatments and medications.

The Gazette article is sensationalizing somewhat. People said they favoured the private system providing some services to supplement the public one. They weren’t asked outright if the rich should have better healthcare than the poor; I am sure that the results would have been drastically different if the question had been phrased that way.

But since when did Quebec ever position itself to the right of the other Canadian provinces on any issue before?

This SARS thing is getting way out of control. So far, 14 Canadians have died and scores of others have been infected, including now a batch of hospital workers who were taking precautions:

SARS has killed a 14th Canadian and infected a new cluster of Toronto hospital workers even though they were protected from head-to-toe in gowns, gloves, masks and eye shields.

[ . . . ]

“We were using what both Health Canada and the (Atlanta-based) Centers for Disease Control consider to be maximal precautions for these patients,” she said, adding it’s possible some potentially infected staff was not present at the intubations.

That raises serious questions about how the virus was spread and whether the current precautions are enough to protect health care workers.

The medical community has called for Canada to spend the $100 million necessary to research and develop a vaccine against SARS, without delay:

“I would say it would be (Prime Minister Jean) Chretien’s best legacy if he would ante up the development money that may be needed for that,” Patrick said, adding that top medical officials across the country were issuing the same appeal.

According to news reports, voices of the federal opposition, as well as Ontario premier Ernie Eves, have joined in the call. But apparently, the government is dragging its heels at approving the money.

And that really makes me wonder about our priorities. I mean, what are our tax dollars for, if not for cases like these?