Following the release of its award winning Definitely NOT the Romanow Report, AIMS collected highlights of the research completeted and assembled the second edition of Ideas matter. Featured on the cover is Swedish health care reformer Johan Hjertdvist.
AIMS launches ACOA WATCH, AIMS in La Presse on sustainable growth and more.
Unhealthy spending threatens health care
Brian Ferguson, Guelph University health economist and author says, medicare’s much-heralded success at cost control is illusory. Simply put, the introduction of medicare did not introduce a period of health care cost control in Canadian health spending.
The Non-Sustainability of Health Care Financing Under the Medicare Model, argues that, without real substantial reform, we are not going to escape our place as the big spenders on health care any time soon.
As Canadians struggle with how to repair our increasingly overwhelmed health care system, some of our neighbours to the south are considering copying our system. They need to be careful not to repeat our mistakes. AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, was recently invited by the Maine Public Policy Institute to Portland, Maine to compare the US and Canadian health care systems and to offer advice on how the Americans might improve upon our experience as they look to move to a public, single payer system along Canadian lines. As the Bangor Daily News reports, Crowley says that, “(b)oth Canada and the United States are only middling programs, we both have much to learn from other places.” Crowley said France, which has both public and private systems providing health care, offers some lessons for those looking to reform. The WHO rates France as having the best health care system in the world. Publication: Bangor Daily News, December 12, 2002
One of AIMS most popular commentary series. Johan Hjertqvist, internationally known health care reformer, discusses the positive effects of the reintroduction of prices for health care procedures.
Interest in the Canadian health care system remains high in the United States. Given the prominence AIMS has achieved in the health care file in this country, Institute President Brian Lee Crowley was recently invited to a major Maine Public Policy Institute health care conference in Portland, Maine, to talk about the relevance of the Canadian model to the US.
In this piece from the Daily News, commentator Charles Moore explains why he thinks the recent AIMS study “Definitely NOT the Romanow Report” is a much more compelling and informative look at health reform than the recently released royal commission. As Moore points out, almost a year ago he was able to accurately predict the content and direction of the Romanow study: a recommendation for the continuation of a public, single-tiered, no user fee system with higher funding. According to Moore, these obvious and predictable conclusions “merely rehash(es) the prejudices and preconceptions that brought Canadian health care to its current difficulties.” This is why he is encouraging everyone to” download a copy of “Definitely NOT The Romanow Report” and check (it) out for yourself at www.aims.ca/Publications/Notromanow/notromanow.pdf.
Medicare can cost less and do more