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Columnists

Next steps for health-care reform in Nova Scotia

At last. We have the best plan ever on health care with the recent report by Dr. John Ross. And the government has accepted all his recommendations to stream patients away from overcrowded emergency rooms through ER reforms, collaborative care clinics and in other ways. But what now?

Here's the skeptical argument first, from my Deep Throat in the system, an ER doctor with many scars from the bad old days of politicized health care. Notably, as a consultant, he was involved in the Alberta reforms of a few years ago -- similar to what's being proposed here -- that now seem to be coming apart because of political bungling.

Columnists

The U.S. health insurance industry's campaign against Michael Moore

Michael Moore, the Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker, makes great movies but they are not generally considered "cliff-hangers." All that might change since a whistle-blower on the Democracy Now! news hour revealed that health insurance executives thought they may have to implement a plan "to push Moore off a cliff." The whistle-blower: Wendell Potter, the former chief spokesman for health insurance giant Cigna. He was quoting from an industry strategy session on how to respond to Moore's 2007 documentary Sicko, a film critical of the U.S. health insurance industry. Potter told me that he is not sure how serious the threat was but he added, ominously, "These companies play to win."

Columnists

It's now or never for Nova Scotia health care

One thing about our health care system in Nova Scotia: It produces good reports on what to do. It's doing it that's the problem. Now, at the end of a string of studies going back a decade and a half, the one by Dr. John Ross on emergency care nails it once and for all. If nothing happens now, we're really in trouble.

Canadians are unable to afford prescription drugs

| February 1, 2012

Our health-care actions in Victoria

| January 24, 2012

A prescription for health-care reform: Think integration and collaboration

| January 17, 2012
press release

Activity Based Funding won't solve waitlists and overcrowding in hospitals: study

Vancouver -- As Canada's premiers meet in Victoria to discuss different approaches to health system reform, a new study raises serious concerns about "Activity Based Funding" (ABF), a new funding model that pays hospitals based on the number of surgeries they perform.

ABF has been introduced in B.C. and is being considered in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario. However, research evidence from the U.S., U.K. and Europe shows that ABF's narrow focus on increasing "activity" in one part of the health-care system does not address the system-level changes needed to control health-care costs and improve patient care.

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Lindsay Beyerstein

Weekly Pulse: Judge rules against health reform, takes cash from opponents

| December 15, 2010

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