CANADIAN POLITICS-ONTARIO:

STARVING HEALTHCARE-FEEDING CORPORATIONS:

The following opinion piece was written by the President of the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union and published in the online news journal Public Values. I reprint it here if only because there seems to be a need of periodic reminders of how good Canada (and the rest of the civilized world ) has it in terms of health care when compared to the USA. Through the thunder of their (often mindless ) debate down there on the proposals to reform their healthcare system one can discern the almost comical ignorance that many (most ?) Americans have about how their system compares unfavourably with almost all developed and even a few underdeveloped countries. They spend more money and get fewer results. Not the least reason for this inefficiency is that a good proportion of the funds available are skimmed off as profit by the insurance companies, amongst others. Whatever the inefficiencies of other systems at least other countries don't have to apportion money to this class of parasites.

Up here our health care system is under attack and underfunded. Governments, such as those of Ontario, as mentioned in the following article, would much rather spend the money on corporate handouts. Not that our system is perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Molly has expressed her own preferences here at this blog before ie a system of community clinics and mutual cooperative insurance. The beginnings of such a system could easily be initiated even under our present system, with the mutual insurance covering things not presently covered by medicare. The single payer system would have to be retained until such time as non-government methods of social insurance were more fully developed. That process would have to be gradual to avoid unnecessary suffering. In the process of such a "withering away of the state" the first thing to go would obviously be grants to the corporations. The last thing to remain would be corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy.

Until this process begins, should it ever begin, it can easily be demonstrated that the Rube Goldberg American system is demonstrably inferior to not just that of Canada but also to that of most of the developed world.

Here's the article.

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Canada spends one-half per capita on health than US does, yet we are healthier:
Government pleads poverty, yet proceeding with tax cuts to Ontario corporations.
by Warren (Smokey) Thomas
How sustainable is health care? Opponents of Medicare regularly question the public sector's ability to pay the bills as health care creeps up as a share of provincial budgets. New data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) suggests health care costs may be more sustainable than we think.

Affordability is best determined by looking at health costs as a percentage of our overall economy, not by the size of government. The CIHI data suggests that health care costs have escalated roughly in step with the economy, whereas the size of government has been getting dramatically smaller.

Health care accounted for 10 per cent of our economy in 1992 – the last period of recession. In 2009, health care is expected to be 11.9 per cent largely due to a shrinking gross domestic product (GDP), not rising costs. In 2008 it was 10.8 per cent, less than a percentage point above the 1992 levels. This hardly indicates a lack of sustainability.

"As a share of the overall health pie, hospitals have been shrinking. In 1975 hospitals accounted for 44.7 per cent of health expenditures. Today it’s 27.8 per cent."

There is no question we are living longer and better as a result of the investments we have made. From 1996 to 2006 our average life expectancy was extended by three years – the biggest leap in mortality rates since they have been kept.

Federal funding to reduce wait times is having a positive impact, particularly for hip and knee replacements as well as cataracts. This is something Canadians all said we wanted and were willing to pay for.

According to CIHI, money has also been invested in tailored drug therapies, diagnostic technology, training health care professionals and to increase class size in medical and nursing schools. These last investments are necessary if we hope to replace the soon to retire legion of baby boomers serving as professionals within our health system.

While spending as a percentage of our economy has nudged forward over 20 years, it has not been entirely in lock step. In the 1990s governments dramatically slashed funding to health care, leaving present governments with a major infrastructure deficit. It is far more costly to play catch-up than it is to keep the system on an even keel. Finance Minister Dwight Duncan admitted this when speaking to the Ontario Hospital Association Conference last fall.

Hospitals always appear the target of restraint, but are hardly to blame for rising health costs. As a share of the overall health pie, hospitals have been shrinking. In 1975 hospitals accounted for 44.7 per cent of health expenditures. Today it’s 27.8 per cent.

"Total public sector spending used to account for about half the economy. Today it is closer to one third."

In 2009 Canadians are expected to spend $5,452 per capita on health care – both public and private. That’s slightly less than France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. It's much less than the United States, which spends almost double per capita and yet leaves 45 million Americans uninsured and many more underinsured. On almost every objective measure, Canadians do better with their health than Americans, from infant mortality to our overall longevity.

In the past year there has been an attempt to divide the progressive community by portraying health care as an insatiable monster crowding out education, housing, transportation and even poverty reduction.

The McGuinty government continues to shrink the pie and is happy to see us all fighting over the scraps. Total public sector spending used to account for about half the economy. Today it is closer to one third.

While the government cries poor, it is stampeding ahead with a series of tax cuts, including a $5 billion reduction to Ontario corporations.

We need to defend all our social services, including health care. When we start pitting our sectors against each other, we all lose.
In solidarity,


Warren (Smokey) Thomas,

President
Links and sources Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) site

CANADIAN LABOUR-SUDBURY:

HEALTH CARE WORKERS SHOW SOLIDARITY WITH VALE INCO STRIKERS:

The strike against Vale Inco in Ontario and Newfoundland goes on into the holiday season. The community of Sudbury and many other labour groups continue to stand solidly behind the strikers. This strike is a critical test of strength. Will the multinationals be able to dictate whatever they want in Canada- backed up by their Conservative Party friends ? Or will they be forced to see reason and bargain fairly ? Out Sudbury way health care workers represented by Local 659 of the Ontario Public Service Employees' Union (OPSEU) have come to the aid of their fellow workers during the Christmas season. The following is from the strike support site Fair Deal Now. For more on this story see also the website of the OPSEU.

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Sudbury Health Care Workers Back Vale Inco Strikers:
‘Time for us and other members of the community to show our support.’ – Yves Shank, OPSEU Local 659
Sudbury, 21 Dec, 2009 – Sudbury area health care workers have made a $5,000 contribution to striking employees of the Vale Inco mining giant.

The Vale Inco employees, members of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500, have been off work since July, fighting massive cutback demands by the Brazilian-owned corporation. The company is demanding rollbacks despite Sudbury being its most profitable mining operation.
The health care workers are members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE). They work at the Sudbury Regional Hospital, the Manitoulin Health Centre and the Sudbury Vascular Laboratory.

“As an active community partner, OPSEU Local 659 acknowledges the efforts and determination of their sisters and brothers at USW-6500 and vows to support them in this fight,” says Yves Shank, president of the local.

“Many of our members have family members on that picket line, and others have friends and relatives who are, have been or will be directly connected to the USW membership,” he notes.
“It is time, particularly during the holiday season, for us and other members of the community to show our support in more concrete ways. We hope this donation will help these members maintain their resolve against a regressive, mean and punitive employer.”

NUPGE

The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada’s largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good.

CANADIAN POLITICS ONTARIO:

PRIVATIZATION IN ONTARIO:

The following opinion piece is from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Down Ontario way the provincial government has floated the idea of privatizing various government Crowns, as a means to get quick money to relieve their deficit. Now, Molly is an anarchist, a libertarian socialist, not a leftist. I have no great attachment to government owned business, just as I have little attachment to any massive corporation. Private or public it is all the same to me. Leftists, with rare exceptions, rarely meet a tax they cannot love nor a government monopoly that they wouldn't be willing to sleep with. In contradiction to this I personally have little problem with opening up state monopolies to competition. In the end that will be one of the ways that a real cooperative socialism will be built.

At the same time the rush to "privatize" various government businesses is usually ideologically driven, done irrationally and quite often conceals less savoury motives of "consideration" that will be given to politicians when they reenter the private sector. The "deals" that are offered the friends of the government are far too often ones that are far sweeter than would be offered in the sale of a private company. The case of the sale of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is an obvious instance. the "asking price" is estimated to be $10 billion. This for a company that makes $1.4 billion a year. In other words the "payback" would be in about 7 years, quite a "steal". In return for the ten billion infusion the Ontario government would avoid paying interest on bonds at a minimal rate while giving up $1.4 billion a year in profit. This could only make sense to an ideologically driven government. Here's the story from the OPSEU.

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Time to stop talk about LCBO privatization: OPSEU:
Premier Dalton McGuinty should put an immediate end to speculation about the privatization of the LCBO by saying the Crown corporation is not for sale, says the union that represents more than 6,000 liquor board employees.

“How many more times are we going to go around the block on this issue?” asked Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. “We beat back privatization under Mike Harris and we were pleased when Premier McGuinty rejected the recommendations of the Lacey panel in 2005 that called for parts of the LCBO to be sold off to the private sector.

“It should be a dead issue by now but somehow it keeps creeping back,” said Thomas, responding to media accounts Wednesday that reported the government has retained the services of two banking investment firms to advise it on the possible privatization of several prominent Crown corporations, including the LCBO.

In 2008 the LCBO earned more than $1.4 billion in profit – funds that are used to finance health care, education and other public services. Surveys have repeatedly found that close to 75 per cent of Ontarians want the LCBO to stay in public hands. And without the profit motive at work, the LCBO rigidly enforces a policy of social responsibility by blocking sales to underage teens, intoxicated customers and third-party purchasers.

Thomas also noted that privatization would threaten the wages, benefits and working conditions enjoyed by many full-time LCBO employees.

“In dozens of communities around Ontario the LCBO is a source of employment and a “destination retailer” that attracts other retail businesses. Why tamper with a formula that has worked so well on behalf of all Ontarians?

“Slaughtering the goose that annually lays golden eggs for the public purse is a half-baked strategy that should be put to rest for good.”