The Struggle for Healthcare in Historical and International Context

By Sarah Jarmon
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
18 September 2009

The struggle for universal healthcare in the U.S. has been long and difficult. Since the late 1800s, there have been multiple efforts at reform and revolutionary change. They have been met with much resistance from all sides, for various reasons. Some of the arguments have included:

• Individuals’ aversion to paying taxes to cover the healthcare expenses of others;
• The fear of payments to doctors decreasing with a government-run versus insurance company-run system;
• The self-interested concerns of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies about profits and job security; and
• The capitalist ideology opposing the concept of publicly-funded healthcare.

Currently, the reaction from the extreme right is cause for much alarm. Recently a sign at a town hall meeting calling for the death of Obama, Michelle, and “their stupid children,” and gun-carrying protesters signify an emboldenment of the reactionary forces. Despite the current manifestation of this backwards and violent upsurge, the movement that labels a national health care program as Nazi, fascist or Stalinist is not new. In fact, in part because Germany was one of the first countries to enact national healthcare, and Germany was fascist (although not when universal healthcare was enacted), there has historically been a knee-jerk reaction in the United States that equates universal healthcare to fascism. Although inaccurate, incomplete and dangerous, this analysis is compelling to many people.

Harper’s health care agenda driven by ‘theory and politics

By Brent Patterson
Council of Canadians
January 20th, 2012

Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson writes, “Prime Minister Stephen Harper is going to give money to the provinces without any strings, conditions or demands. It’ll be the first time since medicare began that a federal government has handed money over carte blanche. Broadly speaking, two reasons explain his decision – one theoretical, one political.” Simpson argues, “The politics of his decision have been almost completely ignored, but they’re important for those who think about political angles all the time.”

Theoretical - his view of federalism

“Mr. Harper believes, when it suits his purposes, in a kind of classical federalism wherein the two levels of government more or less stay out of each other’s jurisdiction. He thinks Liberal governments abused Ottawa’s constitutional ’spending power’ to intrude into provincial jurisdiction, especially in social policy such as health care and daycare. Conservatives would rather use the federal tax system, or unconditional grants to the provinces, thereby respecting classical federalism.”

Private delivery of public health a serious threat

By Rachel Tutte
The Daily News
January 20, 2012

The new Health Care Innovation Working Group announced at this week's Council of the Federation meeting in Victoria is a chance for the provinces to build on the many positive public solutions available to strengthen Medicare.

But patients should be concerned by working group co-chair and Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall's comment that suffering patients choose surgery over ideology when receiving the services of a private for-profit surgical facility.

Given the choice between ideology and evidence, responsible policy makers choose evidence. The evidence from across the country is clear: for-profit clinics cost more than public facilities, increase wait times by draining health care workers from public hospitals, and compromise patient safety

Private delivery of publicly funded surgical services is not innovative. It's a serious and increasing threat to our health and our wallets and leads to unequal, two-tier care that most of us can't afford.

Fortunately, evidence-based public solutions are available right now to policy makers who are serious about addressing our health care challenges. The best examples are some of the innovations in home and community care that take pressure off hospital and emergency services right here in B.C.

Rachel Tutte, Co-chair BC Health Coalition

Secure the Future of Medicare: A Call to Care

Canadian Health Coalition
January 2012

Health care in Canada is a fundamental right without distinction of race, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, political belief, immigration status, and economic or social condition. Organizations representing millions of Canadians will mobilize to defend this right and to ensure that the following principles shape the direction of the Health Accord renewal:

The recognition of the highest attainment of health as a fundamental right throughout life and the necessity of preserving public health through active measures of promotion, prevention, and protection including such determinants as housing, food safety, income, education, environment, employment and peace.

Harper’s health scheme will mean ‘Goin’ Down the Road’ for Maritimers

BY NICK FILLMORE
Canadian Dimension
January 19th 2012

By dramatically changing the health care funding formula, is Prime Minister Stephen Harper showing little concern for the future of the Maritime provinces?

The Health Accord “deal” that Harper practically threw in the face of the provinces and territories this week, not only cuts health funding for all the provinces starting in four years, but threatens to further widen the growing standard-of-living chasm between the “have” and “have not” provinces.

As their meeting ended in Victoria on Tuesday, the premiers vowed they will pressure the Conservative government to change the least equitable aspects of the so-called take-it-or-leave-it “agreement”. But what if the sometimes stubborn Harper government refuses to give much ground?

Will any government stand up for medicare?

By Thomas Walkom
The Toronto Star
January 18, 2012

Think of the current impasse between Ottawa and the provinces over medicare funding as part of a long game.

On one side is the Canadian public, which overwhelmingly supports the publicly funded, universal health insurance system known as medicare.

On the other are the federal and provincial governments, which, for a variety of reasons (some political, some ideological), find medicare a bother.

They are reluctant to spend the money that a successful health system requires — and even more reluctant to raise the taxes that would fund it.

The future of Canada's health care at stake: Maude Barlow warns of privatization and high-cost drugs

By David P. Ball 
Vancouver Observer
Jan 17th, 2012

The health care discussions by premiers in Canada is about more than about just funding, Council of Canadians national chairperson Maude Barlow warns. It's about the very future of public health care in Canada itself.

“We have to get the story to the Canadian people,” she said. “A lot of people don't actually realize that what this means, if the government does this, is the end of a federal role in medicare.”

For decades, Barlow has been a well-known Canadian advocate and commentator – on everything from stopping free trade agreements to declaring access to water a human right.

But public health care has always been one of the 64-year old activist's hot-button issues.

The veteran national chairperson of the 100,000-member strong council, sporting a “Medicare” button on her grey suit jacket – sat down with the Vancouver Observer outside a pivotal meeting of the country's provincial and territorial leaders, who are deliberating on a new national health accord as the current one expires in 2014.

On the outside looking in: Indigenous peoples excluded from premiers' health talks

By David P. Ball
Rabble.ca

January 18, 2012

Is there a link between the tar sands pipelines, the premiers' health conference, and Indigenous rights?

As Canada's premiers and territorial leaders met in Victoria this week to discuss the future of health care -- after the Conservative government pulled back from its medicare role -- no attention has been paid to Indigenous peoples at the talks. All that came out of the meetings were strong words towards Ottawa, and plans to set up working groups on finance and "innovation."

But rabble.ca spoke to two First Nations advocates outside the meeting who said they were outraged by the lack of Aboriginal consultation around the health-care talks.

United Native Nations of B.C. president Lillian George -- from the Wet'suwet'en First Nation in northern B.C. -- and Jerry Peltier, former Grand Chief of Kanesatake Mohawk Nation (near Oka, Quebec), said that all levels of government failed in their obligation to consult and include Indigenous people. Especially, they argued, when it comes to health care.

Here's their conversation with The Left Coast Post today.

Many struggle to pay for prescriptions

BY ANDRÉ PICARD
Globe and Mail
Monday, Jan. 16, 2012

One in four Canadians who do not have drug insurance are unable to afford to take their prescription drugs as directed, a new study shows.

 And, over all, one in 10 Canadians struggle to pay for their drug treatments, even if the have public or/and private insurance, according to research published in Monday’s edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

That means, practically, that millions of patients fail to fill or refill prescriptions, or skip doses to cut costs.

Canadians want feds to play strong role in health care: poll

BY MARK KENNEDY
POSTMEDIA NEWS
JANUARY 16, 2012

A strong majority of Canadians believe the federal government has an "important" role to play in the country's health-care system and to ensure provinces are accountable for the money spent on medicare, according to a new poll.

The national survey by Ipsos Reid was commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association, which represents the nation's doctors.

It was released as the premiers gather in Victoria for a two-day meeting to discuss the health-care system. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not at the meeting, but his Conservative government has announced billions of dollars in long-term medicare payments that fall short of what the provinces had wanted, but which carry no conditions on how the funds are spent.

Among the poll's findings:

- 97 per cent of Canadians think the federal government's responsibility for the Canada Health Act is important. In return for receiving federal money, provinces must adhere to the principles of medicare as outlined in the Act. Those principles include accessibility to services, universal availability, and portability from province to province.

- 70 per cent say they are "worried that without accountability to the federal government, provinces will have no incentive to achieve health care efficiencies."

- 88 per cent are worried that "without national standards, Canadians will have different levels of health care depending on where they live."

- 74 per cent believe that health care is a shared responsibility between the provincial and federal governments. Few believe it is solely a provincial (13 per cent) or federal (11 per cent) responsibility.

- 56 per cent are not confident that the premiers will be able to agree on a plan to improve health care in Canada.

- 69 per cent "strongly agree" that they would encourage their premier to "adopt a series of principles that make the health-care system more concentrated on the needs of the patient."

The telephone poll of 1,000 Canadian adults was conducted Jan. 4-9. With a sample of this size, it has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.