Quote of the day

Marcus Davies, an official of the Saskatchewan Medical Society, on the difference between Canadians and Americans:
Us Canadians, we’re kind of understated by nature.  We don’t go around chanting ‘We’re No. 1!’ But you know, there are two areas where we feel superior to the U.S.: hockey and health care.”
The quote comes from an article in [...]

Welfare through the looking glass

The New York Times Economix blog reminds us that the word “welfare” hasn’t always had negative connotations:
…“the image of the poor person in the 1930s was the agrarian farmer, down on his luck, but not complaining.” Think of Tom Joad, the protagonist of John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”
Starting in the mid-1960s, however, that [...]

Kicking off the Death Spiral

Beware the individual health insurance market (yes, that’s the market McCain wants to push millions of people into). Consider this situation: let’s say you do the right thing and buy an individual health insurance policy when you’re healthy, pay premiums for years, then get sick.
The insurance company pays the initial claims, but they [...]

Hanging out at McCain 08

Over at McCain 08 website I clicked on the “Issues” tab and was surprised to see the category “Human Dignity”. This seems like “touchy-feely” liberal category to me, so I’m seriously wondering what it could be about. I know McCain’s a maverick so who knows. Maybe it’s about

establishing equal access to [...]

Dealing with Malcontents

Frontline’s “Sick Around the World” presented an informative view on the different approaches to healthcare in rich countries around the world. In a webcast discussing the different systems Uwe Reinhardt, professor of health economics at Princeton, emphasized the ethics involved. He said they fell into three categories.

healthcare is available to everyone on an [...]

It’s the solidarity, stupid!

Maggie Mahar has an interesting post on why we don’t have national healthcare.
“[inequality], says Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt, is what makes health care reform so much more difficult in the U.S. than in countries such as Finland, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Denmark, Germany and Norway. In these largely middle-class countries, the [...]

Basic Income

I see the Canadians (or at least progressive Canadians) are considering a Basic Income policy. It would work like Social Security does in this country—delivering a fixed payment to each household regardless of need. Except that Basic Income would extend benefits to everyone—not just the older folks. The idea is that a wealthy [...]