Memoirs on medicare from new NYC book

Next Year Country Books

Below is a chapter from NYC's latest book, No Expectations: A Memoir by James N. McCrorie.

NO EXPECTATIONS is a brief memoir of a Montreal working class kid, the son of Scottish immigrants, who lowered his sights, abandoning a lively ambition to either go to sea or become a railroader, and settling for the life of an academic. The choice did not keep him out of some of the historical struggles of his time, including the fight for medicare in Saskatchewan in 1962, the wild cat strike of 1964, when CN railroaders shut down the railroad, paralyzing the nation, and university reform, which dominated campus life throughout the 1970s.

You can purchase  this book HERE.

Chapter 10 MEDICARE

.It would not be an exaggeration to say that I was thrilled by my research work. The whimsical thought of railroading was banished from my mind. I was travelling all over the province, meeting and interviewing all manner of farm men and women, becoming acquainted with the intriguing history of the province, marveling at how so many men and women, many non-English speaking when they arrived, dared to settle this formidable semi arid desert and create upon the land one of the most enlightened and progressive human communities in Canada.

There was another consideration. I was falling in love with this semi arid desert. True. I missed Montreal, the St. Lawrence River valley and the Canadian Shield. (I was yet to discover that the shield was part of the far north of the province; a region I was yet to visit.) But the variety and complexity of the plains and the parkland began to attract me. Experience and acquaintanceship were undermining my initial displeasure with my new geographical surroundings.

Medicare booklet promotional video

Next Year Country Books

 

New NYC Booklet on Medicare

NYC

Medicare's Birth in Saskatchewan: 50th Anniversary of a People's Victory

The two articles re-published in this pamphlet were written to address the 50th anniversary of North America's first public healthcare system for all citizens initiated in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962.

We were researching the prolific resources and books available on the subject in preparation for a forthcoming book on the fight for medicare in Saskatchewan and wanted to raise the profile of the anniversary as the actual anniversary approached.

This pamphlet is intended as a short and quick resource for labour and health care activists as we celebrate 50 years of medicare.

- Lorne Brown, Doug Taylor

Purchase HERE.

Coming soon!

Next Year Country Books

Introduction

The two articles re-published in this pamphlet were written to address the 50^th anniversary of North America’s first public healthcare system for all citizens initiated in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962.

We were researching the prolific resources and books available on the subject in preparation for a forthcoming book on the fight for medicare in Saskatchewan and wanted to raise the profile of the anniversary as the actual anniversary approached.

This pamphlet is intended as a short and quick resource for labour and health care activists as we celebrate 50 years of medicare.

The next 50 years: What does the future hold for Medicare in Saskatchewan?

By Christeen Jesse
L-P Specialty Products

July 23, 2012

The induction of Medicare into Saskatchewan law 50 years ago has done more than just provide affordable health care - it has also placed importance on the values of equality and democracy.

"We have seen a real establishment of an ethic and understanding that people should be treated if they're sick - regardless of how much money they make and of where they are in society," said Ryan Meili, a family physician in Saskatoon and the head of the Division of Social Accountability at the College of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. "I think that's a really positive thing to have been developed here and it effects the way we see lots of areas of social investment."

Meili, who wrote the recently-published book A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy, recognizes the province's past accolades in health care, but says as society evolves, Medicare needs to change with it.

The Birth of Medicare: From Saskatchewan’s breakthrough to Canada‑wide coverage

By Lorne Brown and Doug Taylor

Canadian Dimension

July 3rd 2012

The Saskatchewan Doctor’s Strike. Photo courtesy Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists. 

Medicare was born in Saskatchewan on July 1, 1962. It would be the first government-controlled, universal, comprehensive single-payer medical insurance plan in North America. It was a difficult birth. The North American medical establishment and the entire insurance industry were determined to stop Medicare in its tracks. They feared it would become popular and spread, and they were right. Within 10 years all of Canada was covered by a medical insurance system based on the Saskatchewan plan, and no serious politician would openly oppose it.

The same interests that tried to prevent Medicare and are continually trying to destroy it in Canada have mostly succeeded in stopping similar progress in the United States. After more than half a century of struggle, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the private insurance industry still control the US medical system despite minor steps forward like Medicaid for the very poor and Medicare for the elderly. The latest plan passed by Congress and endorsed by the private insurance industry amounts to public subsidies for the insurance industry.

Commentators have often wondered why the campaign for state medicine succeeded in Canada and failed in the United States. The battle for Medicare occurred in the 1960s when our political culture was moving to the left. Medicare’s first breakthrough.

Video: A History of Medicare in Saskatchewan

CTV

   

Saskatchewan's Struggle for Medicare: A Timeline

Courtesy of the Regina Leader Post

Click HERE to review.

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of medicare in Saskatchewan

By Retiree Matters Janice M. Bernier

Rabble.ca

July 9, 2012

When medicare was introduced in Saskatchewan in July of 1962, I was six years old and about to start Grade 1. When I look back, I am amazed at how much a child will absorb, remember and learn. Growing up in Saskatchewan during the health-care debates helped shape who I am today.

In the 1930s and 1940s, my dad's father operated the dray service hauling wood, ice, coal and other goods between farms and small towns. He also drove the horse and buggy in the summer or cutter (sleigh) in the winter to take the local doctor out to deliver babies or treat the sick. Dad vividly recalls both his father and the doctor being paid in vegetables, chickens, grain or other goods.

Allan Blakeney on the Media During the 1962 Medicare Fight

Queen's Quarterly

Open publication - Free publishing - More ccf

"Medicare's 50th Anniversary" now a blog book

NYC
March 22, 2012

Don't want to spend time scrolling down this blog or searching for something? Check out the blog book below to see if assists you.

You can also download the book or embed it.

Open publication - Free publishing - More ccf

The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Party

The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Party was the predecessor of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. In this policy statement they called for the "Socialization of all health services."

Open publication - Free publishing - More socialist

George Williams of the SFLP (future leader of the Saskatchewan CCF prior to Tommy Douglas) speaks at a wheat pool rally, 1930

The Saskatchewan Hospital Services Insurance Plan

Civilization.ca

After the failure of the federal health insurance proposal in 1946, the CCF government in Saskatchewan moved forwards with its own plan for a provincial hospital services insurance plan.

Having already provided provincial funding for the health needs of the indigent, the blind and single mothers in 1945–1946, the government of Tommy Douglas proceeded to develop a province-wide plan that used the 900 municipalities to enrol all citizens in the plan. Each year at tax time, local authorities collected the annual premium and updated the individual’s or family’s information on their hospital services card.

By 1954, Saskatchewan had 810,000 people covered by its plan, and the statistics that had been generated since its introduction in 1947 clearly demonstrated that increasing the number of available hospital beds also increased the rate of occupancy. Many of the new beds were occupied by mothers and their newborns, and a large proportion of the remainder by the elderly.

For Saskatchewan, the creation of its provincial hospital services insurance program was the first step towards a comprehensive service that would fulfill CCF goals of ensuring that all citizens had access to this basic social good.

In November 1945, Swift Current’s residents voted to establish Saskatchewan’s first health region. The Swift Current Health Region was a self-governing authority that successfully provided a comprehensive range of health care services. This health card belonged to Miss Mary Morgan. 

Western Development Museum, WDM-2003-5-512

Saskatchewan NDP sponsors 50th anniversary dinner

50 Years of Medicare

Saskatchewan NDP

A dinner will be held on Saturday, June 23, 2012 at TCU Place, 35 - 22nd St. E, Saskatoon, SK as part of our 75th annual convention of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party.

The cash bar will open at 5:30 p.m. and dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. immediately followed by the program featuring former NDP Premier, Roy Romanow as we celebrate 50 years of Medicare and look to the next 50 years.

Print the order form below if you'd like to order tickets to the event.

Click image to enlarge

Woodrow S. Lloyd

Civilization.ca

Born in Webb, Saskatchewan, Woodrow Stanley Lloyd (1913–1972) was a teacher and politician who succeeded Tommy Douglas as Premier of Saskatchewan in 1961.

Lloyd began his teaching career in 1933, became active in the Saskatchewan Teachers’ Federation and was its President from 1941 to 1944. In 1944, Lloyd successfully ran for the provincial Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Biggar, Saskatchewan, the constituency that he would represent until his retirement in 1971.

Premier Douglas appointed Lloyd as Minister of Education, making him the youngest Cabinet minister in Saskatchewan’s history. In this post, Lloyd successfully amalgamated over 5,000 school boards into 56 Larger School Units, giving students access to better facilities and specialized teaching. In 1960, Douglas appointed him as Provincial Treasurer.

 As Douglas’s successor, Lloyd implemented Saskatchewan’s medical care insurance plan in 1962, despite opposition from the medical profession, other provincial parties and “Keep Our Doctors” Committees. Although the doctors went on strike on July 1, 1962, Lloyd’s commitment to medicare and to resolving the dispute with dignity was successful and the plan was implemented. Lloyd’s resolution of the Saskatchewan doctors’ strike showed the rest of Canada that publicly funded, accessible medical services could not be blocked by the private goals of the medical profession.

CBC Archives: The 1960 Saskatchewan election

CBC Archives

The Story
As Saskatchewan farmers finish their planting for the fall harvest, the four political parties furiously campaign just days before the 1960 provincial election. Premier Tommy Douglas and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) seek their fifth term in office, promising a public medical insurance plan that would cover all Saskatchewan citizens. As Newsmagazine's Norman DePoe reports in this CBC Television clip, this is more than a routine provincial election. It may decide whether all Canadians will have state medicare.

Not only is Douglas being attacked by the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives and the Social Credit Party, but a fourth player has also entered the fray. The College of Physicians and Surgeons is knee-deep in the political waters of this election campaign. They warn that voters won't have the same rights as patients under Douglas' plan. Premier Douglas thunders defiantly at a CCF rally: "This sort of propaganda … is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Saskatchewan."

Watch video HERE. 

Our History and the Struggle for Medicare

By Michael Finley
Focus
Saskatoon Community Clinic
Winter 2011

“The Community Clinics began as part of the struggle for Medicare. We should not forget that struggle, and the opposition to public health insurance.” That, according to Dr. John Bury, is one of the lessons we should carry forward from the history of our Clinic. “We should remember that victories for social justice always require struggle,” he said.

Dr. Bury was speaking at a forum on the “History of the Community Clinics and Medicare” at the at the Westside Clinic on October 19 and the Downtown Clinic on October 20. It was the first of three Community Clinic 101 sessions planned by the Member Services Committee. The session featured reminisces of the early years of the Clinic from Betsy Bury, the first Member Relations Director and Health Ombudsman; Dr. Bury, who came to the clinic in 1963, just one year after it opened its doors; and Joan Bell, who was active in the early years of the Prince Albert Community Clinic.

Same fight, new foes

Fifty years after the birth of medicare, Canada’s health care system is again under threat

BY LORNE BROWN, DOUG TAYLOR

Briarpatch magazine

FEB 28, 2012 

Taylor and Brown

July 1, 2012, will mark the 50th anniversary of the birth of medicare in Saskatchewan, the forerunner of Canada’s national medicare system. It was not an easy delivery. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan was beset by a doctors’ strike intent on preserving physician privileges and opposing public health care.

Fifty years later, Canada’s medicare system is again under threat. Harper’s Conservatives have unveiled a plan to scale back health-care funding, destroying medicare as we know it. The ideology of neoliberalism has taken root over the past two decades, and austerity and privatization remain capital’s preferred strategy. But there was a different alignment of political players and social movements 50 years ago when medicare was first fought for.

Three Weeks in July: The Response of the Press to the 1962 Doctors’ Strike in Saskatchewan

By Murray McEachen

"...the three weeks in July 1962, in Saskatchewan, were truly a turning point in Canadian history"

For three weeks in July 1962, the attention of Canadians and the nation’s press was focused on Saskatchewan, for it was there that the province’s doctors were going to collectively withdraw their services. In effect, they were going to go “on strike.” William Thompson, who was Managing Editor of the Regina Leader-Post in the summer of 1962, said that the dispute was voted by the wire editors of Canada as the top story of the year, and Woodrow Lloyd’s biographer called the doctors’ strike the news event of the decade. As such, it drew media from across Canada to Saskatchewan at its peak.

The doctors, represented by the Saskatchewan College of Physicians and Surgeons, led by Dr. Harold Dalgleish were protesting the enactment of the Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act by the provincial government, led by Premier Woodrow S. Lloyd. Successful implementation of the Act would mean that a socialist government had put in place a comprehensive medical care plan for the first time in North America.

Many, therefore, viewed it as a test by fire for the Canadian left. The federal government had been pondering the issue of medicare since the 1940s and had established the Royal Commission on Health Services headed by Justice Emmett Hall in 1961. Ottawa would no doubt maintain a weather eye, through the looking glass of the press, at the events as they unfolded in Saskatchewan. The question put forth in this paper is how did the story, as reflected in the editorial pages of Canada’s daily newspapers, affect the medicare debate at a national level?

Read this paper HERE.

Review press clippings from Saskatchewan HERE.

The Year We Became Us: A Novel About the Saskatchewan Doctors Strike

Written by Gary Engler
Fernwood Publishing

The Year We Became Us is a novel about the 1962 Saskatchewan doctors’ strike as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl. Roy, the son of a union activist, is a committed socialist and the best Little League pitcher in the entire province.

Katherine, the daughter of a surgeon, has fallen in love with two novels by Ayn Rand and aspires to be just like her. Both are forced to write letters to President Kennedy as punishment for always arguing politics in their Grade 8 class at Saint Michael’s Catholic School in Moose Jaw.

Part romance, part adventure and part political philosophy, this historical novel moves between1960s Moose Jaw and present-day Boston and follows Roy and Katherine as they revisit their letters to President Kennedy forty years later.

The 1962 Saskatchewan doctors’ strike was one of the pivotal moments in the creation of Medicare — the quintessential Canadian institution that sets us apart from our U.S. neighbours. To be released on the 50th anniversary of Canada’s first socialized medical plan, The Year We Became Us is a work of historical fiction portraying a crucially important moment in our history, one that is often overlooked or forgotten in contemporary Canadian society and by younger generations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GARY ENGLER worked as a journalist for 20 years, including time as both a writer and editor at the Vancouver Sun. He is the author of The Great Multicultural North.

Co-published with: RED Publishing
Paperback ISBN: 9781552664827
Paperback Price: $19.95 CAD
Publication Date: Jun 2012
Rights: World
Pages: 264
unavailable until Jun 2012