The Frontier Centre and its Brussels-based partners at the Health Consumer Powerhouse release the 2008 Canada Healthcare Consumer Index, the first-ever national consumer-focused bench-marking of Canada’s provinces.
Rebecca Walberg
Getting More for the Health Reform Budget
The federal government has pledged billions of dollars to the provinces to help them deliver better healthcare, and to deliver it faster. So far, this hasn’t happened. Some specific changes can help ensure that health reform budgets aren’t wasted.
Escaping the Poverty Trap
Most people, given the choice, would like to live in a neighbourhood that boasts a sense of community. The poor are no different. A stake in one’s own community and a sense of belonging are crucial to generating social capital and good relations between neighbours.
Healthcare Can’t Improve Until Its Structure Is Changed
Patients need the power to make choices. When they can do that, wait times will shrink, outcomes will improve and spending will be constrained. Tilting at the straw men of privatization and parallel systems does nothing to advance the debate. We deserve better.
Featured News
There’s Nothing Fair About Canadian Health Care
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
Transformers: More than Meets the Eye
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
Canadian Health Care System Lags Behind Europe, Says Study
Canada ranks 23rd out of 30 countries surveyed in the "consumer friendliness'' of its health care system, says a new report compiled by European and Canadian researchers. The study undertaken by a pair of private think tanks - the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for...
Human Rights Commissions’ Time has Passed
After hard won battles against real discrimination, Human Rights Commissions have become ironically repressive.
Manitoba Natives are Failed Twice Over
The serious problems that plague aboriginals on and off-reserve are well known, as are the shortcomings of Manitoba’s health care. What happens when native Manitobans are caught at the intersection of these two broken systems?
The Mulroney Factor
In general, Mulroney pushed an often reluctant Canadian public toward smaller government, freer enterprise, and a reduced public sector.
Prairie Spending Patterns Show No Evidence of Child-Care Crisis
People spend more on their house pets than on daycare.
Two Tiers Better Than One
The average Canadian, if transplanted to Europe, would enjoy more choice and much better access to health care, at a lower total cost.
Making Welfare Work
Lasting and meaningful welfare reform will come about only when we reduce incentives to stay on welfare, pare back the chunk taken out of every paycheque in various taxes, and use public funds effectively.
Timid, Distant and Bland
Offered a choice between a confident incumbent who promised to keep a dysfunctional system, and a largely unknown challenger who offered minuscule changes, Manitoba opted for the status quo.
Capitation – An Answer for our GP Shortage?
The healthcare system needs more family physicians. Simple changes to the payment system have a better chance of short-term success, and will on balance make health care more effective and less expensive.