Monday, December 27, 2010

Canada is under seige from within!

Under the Canadian Constitution it will take 6 province plus a 2/3 majority plebiscite to separate from Canada!  At risk to Canadians is their CPP, Old Age Security and Health Care.  Quebec risks their Equalization payments the latter at the heart of the Wild Rose Party.

This is the crew who are pushing you towards a US health care system and God only knows what else.  Separation under their formula is not out of the question.

Let's start of the list with Quebec who have not come forward as members.

Then, add this club.

The Canadian Members are:


Alberta
Premier Ed Stelmach
Alana DeLong, MLA
Kyle Fawcett, MLA
Hon. Mel Knight
Richard Marz, MLA
Len Mitzel, MLA



British Columbia
Premier Gordon Campbell
Hon. Naomi Yamamoto
John van Dongen, MLA
Joh Rustad, MLA
Guy Gentnew, MLA



Northwest Territories
Premier Floyd Roland
Hon. Bob McLeod
David Ramsay, MLA

Saskatchewan

Premier Brad Wall
Michael Chisholm, MLA                       
Hon. Bill Boyd
 Dustin Duncan, MLA 



Yukon
Premier Dennis Fentie
Glen Hart, MLA
Hon. Jim Keyon
Steve Nordick, MLA



There, you have your 6 supporting province majority.  Now, pick any issue and blow it out of proportion  and, one can withdraw from Canada  (I would bet Alberta ahead of Quebec!) and/or  opt out of any Federal Program such as Canada Health Act, Canada Pension Plan, Social Security, navigable waterways and grain and water exports.


The Federal Liberals have Mr. Ignatieff as a Leader and this man is far more American than he is Canadian and has done absolutely nothing to distinguish himself differently.  I suspect he would, like Harper, support anything this crew came up with although in power with the present formula he would not have a choice.

Canadians have to opt for a massive political change as in eradicate the Federal and  Provincial Conservatives in order to disarm this crew who are leading us into political chaos through secret agreements drawn up in the US (Portland), never to see the light of day in Canada.

On a lighter note, Saskatchewan's Michael Chisholm picture looks not unlike a deer caught in the headlights.

Here are some back links supporting this:

http://www.disabled-world.com/news/seniors/senior-health-care.php

http://albertathedetails.blogspot.com/2010/12/alberta-health-care-less-expensive-than.html

http://albertathedetails.blogspot.com/2010/12/conservatives-all-over-world-privitize.html

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Alberta Conservativs Pushing US style system.

Looking south for health-care lessons: Gov'ts study Oregon plan; critics call it two-tiered

Edmonton Journal
Thu Nov 16 2000
Page: A17
Section: Insight
Byline: Shawn Ohler
Dateline: Edmonton
Source: The Edmonton Journal

Series: HEALTH CARE: What's the prognosis?
In poll after poll, Canadians rate health care as their top concern. It has become a hot election issue as politicians bicker over who betrayed medicare. But alarmed health-care experts are looking beyond the politics to ask some tough questions: Is our ailing health-care system doomed? Can it be cured? What are the best solutions? Journal reporter Shawn Ohler tackles those questions in an eight-day series.
The Series
NOV. 12: How sick is medicare? Canadian health care is imperilled by an aging population and exploding costs.
NOV. 13: Future health-care models. From Bill 11 to controversial national studies -- a look at what's being done to shape medicare's future.
NOV. 14: Behind the times. Is Canada a Third-World nation when it comes to state-of-the-art medical technology?
NOV. 15: Options and obstacles. Champions of alternative medicine face massive government roadblocks.
TODAY: Looking south for lessons. Oregon may have something to teach cost-conscious Canadians about public health care.
FRIDAY: The doctor deficit. The keys to solving Canada's growing physician shortage.
SATURDAY: Tracking `spare parts.' Can a novel new database end the suffering of patients who need replacement knees and hips?
SUNDAY: Radical remedies. User fees, medical savings accounts and medicare taxes are among the aggressive prescriptions for health care's ills. Political parties, too, are pitching cures.
- - -
It has the same population as Alberta, a river-bound city the size of Edmonton and a revolutionary health-care system that may have something to teach Canadian health hawks desperate for ways to contain costs.

It's Oregon, the Pacific Northwest state whose ground-breaking Oregon Health Plan continues to draw international notice -- including some from Alberta Health Minister Gary Mar -- seven years after it was introduced.  (Insert: While this was being printed, Capital Health was drawing up their list of services to be taken off Alberta Health care.  Conservative dogma had already decided a person should sell their homes to pay for medical treatment before the Government chipped in)

As Canadian politicians, doctors and health-care experts tread carefully around the explosive political ramifications of limiting publicly funded medical services, Oregon has already done it.

``We wanted to identify those services which are effective and beneficial to society as a whole, so we did it,'' said Hersh Crawford, the program's director.
In the early '90s, Oregon faced some of the same pressures that now imperil Canada's medicare system -- an aging population, exploding drug costs and expensive advances in medical technology.

The state of 3.2 million was having problems funding its Medicaid program, which makes state-funded medical coverage available to all Oregonians living below the poverty line.

Oregon responded by compiling a list of ``diagnosis-treatment pairs'' that link medical conditions with their appropriate remedies. About 350,000 Oregonians who are enrolled in the public plan -- the majority of whom can't afford private health insurance -- are treated for 574 priority pairs, and the bill goes to the state.
For example, the state plan covers bone-marrow transplants for leukemia, cancer surgery, and therapy for insulin-dependent diabetics, but not minor head injuries, doctor visits for the common cold, or fractured ribs.

Since implementing its plan, Oregon boasts its ranks of uninsured have dropped to 10 per cent from 14 per cent, and more than one million Oregonians have gained access to health care.

Meanwhile, the priority list -- drafted by a state-appointed commission and meticulously costed out by actuaries -- has kept costs manageable.
``I think we've shown it is possible to provide good health care for people without covering a sprained wrist or a simple cold,'' Crawford said.
``We knew we needed reform but we didn't want to dump a whole lot more money into the system, because we assumed that would be inflationary and costs would just go up.''

But the plan has generated controversy about its perceived failure to control those medical costs while providing fair access to technology advancements.
This spring, Oregon teen Brandy Stroeder, a plan member, was denied a potentially life-saving lung-and-liver transplant because it's not on the priority list. The rarely attempted simultaneous transplant was deemed too experimental and, at $250,000, too costly.

``I think if you're going to have a medical plan, as soon as the medical technology advances, so should your plan,'' said Stroeder, before firing a shot at Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat who drafted the plan in the early '90s.
``I guess Kitzhaber thinks he knows what he's doing. I just hope that later on down the road one of his relatives doesn't need a double transplant.''
The 18-year-old Stroeder, who has cystic fibrosis, is trying to raise the money privately to pay for the operation. Without it, she'll likely die before her 20th birthday.
``I cough a lot during the day. It's like running a marathon and then trying to walk. From my liver disease, I feel really bloated, like I've just eaten a big turkey dinner.
``But I'm not going to spend the rest of my days being mad at the Oregon Health Plan people. They're not worth my time. We'll try to work it out.''

Other critics of the plan say Stroeder's case, while sad, isn't indicative of the plan's failures. Even the state's richest private health-insurance companies likely wouldn't cover the rare double transplant either.

The critics say the plan's real failure is the same general failure of the American system, in that it creates different levels of care and access for the rich and poor.
``When it comes down to a list that says, `OK, this is the baseline but anybody who wants more care has to pay out of pocket' -- that's dangerous,'' said Ellen Pinney, who heads an Oregon consumer advocates' group. ``It's two-tiered medicine, the same thing folks in Canada have done their darndest to guard against.''

Pinney said Canadians shouldn't rush to emulate Oregon's plan. ``It's the reverse. Canada -- the single-payer, publicly administered system -- that's what we should be emulating.''

Still, the Oregon plan appears attractive to Canadian governments looking for innovative ways to sustain the country's most cherished social program.
Mar, Alberta's health minister said it warrants a closer look.

``We have to be open-minded to the experiences of all jurisdictions and look at innovations in the delivery of health care,'' Mar said.

``Some say a user fee should be put in. You go to the doctor, it costs you $10. Others have said you should take some things off the list like they do in Oregon. We're not planning on a user fee, but those kinds of other solutions should be raised. It may lead to something that's a constructive change and palatable to the public.''

Illustration:
• Photo: AP / Brandy Stroeder, right, of McMinnville, Ore., with her mother, Karen, at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland.
Edition: Final
Story Type: Special Report; Series
Note: HEALTH CARE: What's the prognosis?
Length: 1064 words
Idnumber: 200011160123

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Alberta Health Care Less expensive than the US version!

Data
The authors’ main data set used is The Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (JCUSH). Collected between the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003, this data set includes 3,505 Canadian and 5,183 American individuals.
Basic Statistics

U.S.
Canada
Life Expectancy (Male)
74.8
77.4
Life Expectancy (Female)
80.1
82.4
Infant Mortality/1000 live births
6.8
5.3
Obesity Rate (Male)
31.1
17.0
Obesity Rate (Female)
32.2
19.0
HC spending as % of GDP (2005)
16.0%
10.4%



We can readily see that the U.S. has worse life expectancy, infant mortality rates, and obesity rates that Canada, yet pays more for these relatively poorer outcomes. Canada is clearly better…right?

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Alberta Health Care – Some not so apparent facts

Alberta’s hospitals have in the past been owned by the Members of the Board of that hospital, not the Government.

Recent changes to the Health Authority did more than moving the Health Care from Capital Health to the more aggressive Regional Health Authorities! When this transition was done, the title for the hospitals moved away from the boards and directly onto the new Authorities! It makes it possible for the Health Authorities to sell all or any part of the Alberta holdings to the private sector without the approval of the Assembly!

The plans for privatizing health care and moving us to a US style system have been in play for many years.  It is not a new thing!  To the contrary, it has been the Conservative's plan going back 40 years and they are now in the position of completing it!

Even when rolling in cash, the Conservatives continued to short Health Care and it was always their first choice to cut when times got a bit skinny.  Shorting money closes beds and curtails services.

You may recall the last Government being sued a few times because of this shorting and manipulation of services?

This has left this Government more vulnerable that it was in the past so they wrote “The crown cannot be held responsible for anything that goes wrong under this act” into the new legislation which also opened the door for foreign and private companies to sell health insurance into Alberta.

The Alberta Blue Cross is one of these private companies and, they have doubled their staff in the last 3 years in anticipation of insuring Albertans in the private system.

The Capital Health Authority authored a document that gave a list of which services to delist on the Alberta Health Care.  This list adopted the Oregon “Services not Covered” list and it was made even leaner and meaner because the US Oregon system was seen as to frivolous.

Some of this is in effect already.  Seniors prescriptions are being co-pay to a greater extent as time goes on, soon to be eliminated if these guys are elected again.

I mention the seniors prescription predicament and the erosion of Government support because that is exactly what is going to happen to your Alberta Health Care Coverage!

First Private practice funded by the Government.  Next limit the amount of coverage by the Government and finally, do away with Government health insurance. All the structure is in place to do exactly this, right now!

The Conservatives, trying to spin this out are trying to create a aura of being our friends when they started the MS study.   Many things they are talking about, MS study and combined pensions with the Federal Government comes to mind for the most immediate part of the charade. 

None of these things will come to pass until after the next election and I predict they will be swept under the carpet and the private system and private insurance will come into full effect!

The Wild Rose Party is also pushing the same private system.  This party was born in the circles of the Southern Mormon community and this community remains the core of the group.  These fundamentalists were born and raised with an umbilical to Salt Lake City, abstinence, tithing and the private health insured system.  In this regard their leadership is simply a shill for a similar political agenda.

This month’s publication of Vanity Fair has an article about the Taliban fundamentalists.  It goes onto explain the Taliban cannot win the current contest because they continue to tell people what they are against and do not tell them what they are for but, they will still be around a long time.



I was born in Cardston.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Wild Rose Party Fanitics show their colors!

Daniel Smith, the mouth piece for this crew of Southern Mormans has declared the state funded health care system is the fault of today's health care predicaments.

She does not bother to say that under that system if you have no job you have to health care!

She does not say that Seniors in the US are frightened out of their lives by their Medicaid being underfunded and, they have no other means.

She does not say there is presently 55 million, soon to be 70 million Americans that are without any kind of health care coverage at all and are unable to obtain even the most rudimentary care and medications.

Obama's Health Care Reforms were defeated by the Daniel Smiths of the south.  Why any one in their right minds would entertain voting for this bunch of extremes is beyond me!

Friday, December 03, 2010

Alberta Health Care - Conservatives all over the world privitize health care!

Dr. Terri Jackson, a professor in the University of Alberta’s faculty of medicine and dentistry who has a doctoral degree in health policy writes in her extensive letter, how conservative governments around the world “break trust with the electorate by using their powers illegally.”
Some governments do so by starving the health system of funds, making public care so inadequate the public reluctantly turns to private health care for services.

This is what the Alberta Conservatives have done with programs over the years.  Blowing up hospitals is one way to short services.

As a PS, this is an example of the system  The Conservatives are putting us into!

Stelmach recently said "There is no hidden agenda"  meaning there is sufficient publicity around their intent to privatize health care that it is no longer a secret.

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