Healthcare

Health care is becoming more and more of a political issue in Britain. Long waiting lists, poor response and low standards have led to rising popular discontent. The Government is now taking radical steps to transform the National Health System (NHS). Just as in Sweden, “more money” has for many years been counted on as the recipe for putting things right. But the Blair administration has gradually come to see that pouring new millions into a malfunctioning system only serves to perpetuate the problems. And so now the NHS is to be reformed, from monopoly and bureaucracy to decentralisation and a consumer focus. In this piece, Johan Hjertqvist, AIMS’ commentator on Swedish health care reform, discusses how New Labour has derived most of the inspiration for its reform from the Stockholm County Council. He concludes that the efforts of Britain’s Labour Party offer a glimpse of what can be achieved when you move past ideology and focus on the more practical question of what actually works.

Brian Lee Crowley, President of AIMS, gave a talk at the National Healthcare Leadership Conference in Halifax on May 27, 2002. Dr. Crowley was a member of the five-person panel discussing “two-tier health care,” in Canada. Below is a quote from Dr. Crowley’s concluding remarks, if you would like to read the entire analysis that led to these conclusions on our website, please click here. In sum, much of our debate about multiple tiers is ideological, and has little to do with the quality of care delivered within the public system. We cling to a system that outlaws private spending on publicly-insured services, usually on the basis that parallel systems of care rob the public system of resources, while both objective and subjective international rankings show that multiple tiers of access are fully compatible with high quality public systems and high levels of care overall and high levels of patient satisfaction.

This article features Dr. David Zitner, AIMS’ Fellow in Health Care Policy, criticizing BC Premier Gordon Campbell for joining the ranks of other Canadian politicians who are blindly implementing major health care policy without the right information or concrete direction. Drawing from the influential AIMS’ report, Public Health, State Secret, Dr. Zitner stresses that experts, decision makers, and the general public lack crucial information about access to and the actual result of care in this country. This absence of vital information stems from the Canadian government’s monopolistic control over our health care. Publication: VS & OC, May 6, 2002

Johan Hjertqvist discusses the utility and effects of user fees in the Swedish health care system. The investigation explores several different aspects of health care including: general practitioners, dental services, elderly care and pharmaceuticals.

AIMS was the focus of praise during an April 17, 2002 presentation to the Romanow Commission on “The Future of Health Care”. The presentation, given by AIMS’ President Brian Lee Crowley and AIMS’ Fellow in Health Care Policy David Zitner, discussed how to improve quality of health outcomes for Canadians through the introduction of competition and proper evaluation in the current flawed system. Building on the themes of several of AIMS award-winning publications – publications whose influence and quality Commissioner Romanow went out of his way to remark on - AIMS stressed the need to “unbundle” the functions of insurer, providers and evaluator of health care and to implement proper management within the system. Commissioner Romanow expressed much gratitude for the work that AIMS does in the Health Care sector, and further emphasized the value of AIMS thoughtful and scholarly research to the Canadian debate on general issues.

Better Medicine is a brilliant collaboration of essays by some of Canada’s leading authorities in health care policy. Introduced and edited by Dr. David Gratzer, author of the award winning book “Code Blue”, and co-sponsored by AIMS, Better Medicine features academics, journalists, policy analysts, and physicians as they examine and analyse the past, present, and future outlook of Canada’s health care system. In addition to AIMS’ sponsorship role, Better Medicine includes an edited version of the Institute’s influential paper “Public Health, State Secret”. AIMS has constructed a page stemming from our main Healthcare site which contains information on how to obtain a copy of Better Medicine, as well as a four-part series on fixing Canada’s health care system composed of three excerpts from this prestigious new collection, and an editorial overview by Dr. David Gratzer.