Wednesday, Nov. 5: “We’ve been impressed by your recent columns on auto insurance in the Post,” the insurance industry’s public affairs rep tells me over the phone. “Would you be willing to go to Fredericton next week and offer your views at a luncheon?” Thus began my adventure into the zany workings of lawmaking in New Brunswick.
Tag Archives: Canada
2 Fast 2 Cheap
Canada’s private automobile insurance companies gouge almost all their customers. But there are exceptions.
Americans love their car . . . insurance
U.S. auto insurance is not only fairer, it’s cheaper, thanks to free enterprise. Politicians and other advocates of state control should keep that in mind.
Romanow’s nether regions
Roy Romanow recommends expanding medical services to rural communities to address the appallingly poor health of rural Canadians. This recommendation, he says, conforms to his goal of being “evidence-based and values-driven.”
The phoney MSA debate
The debate over medical savings accounts (MSAs) – the proposal to have government give each Canadian an annual health allowance to cover routine health needs – has largely been fought on economic grounds. Continue reading The phoney MSA debate
Rise of a ‘zombie’
Put yourself in the shoes of Raisa Deber, a professor of health policy at University of Toronto and one of the medical establishment’s leading strategists and defenders of medicare as we know it. Imagine that, like her, you are rock-sure of your position. And that your peers in Canada’s medical establishment – academics and administrators who have the ear of government bureaucrats – overwhelmingly share your perspective, particularly about the evils of anything that smacks of private sector involvement in health care.
Medical savings accounts would benefit all Canadians
Roy Romanow, Canada’s one-man health commission, believes that the poor need good health care and that any reform of Canada’s health care system must provide it to them.
Continue reading Medical savings accounts would benefit all Canadians
Medicare debit cards
Next Thursday, on Jan. 24, all of Canada’s premiers will gather together in Vancouver to act upon what the pacesetter among them, Alberta’s Ralph Klein, will have decided on Wednesday, Jan. 23 about the future of medicare. Continue reading Medicare debit cards
Close health care gap with allowances
Doctors, lawyers and other professionals aren’t as healthy, and don’t live as long, as those who occupy even higher rungs on the socio-economic ladder. Neither do the children of doctors, lawyers and other professionals. Continue reading Close health care gap with allowances
Fyke report’s missing link: health-care allowances
Saskatchewan’s Commission on Medicare brutally described the country’s health-care system last week in its report, Sustaining a Quality System.
Continue reading Fyke report’s missing link: health-care allowances