Author: Doug Allan
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Healthcare Funding Means Cuts are Coming
The group that will do the best out of the recent provincial Budget are the doctors. According to the just released Budget Estimates, OHIP funding (which goes overwhelmingly to physicians and practitioners) will go up $1.2-billion. Keep reading »
Hallway Medicine: It Can Be Fixed
This brief is part of a cross province campaign by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions / CUPE to alert the public to the dangers to hospital and healthcare posed by a Doug Ford Progressive Conservative government. Keep reading »
Healthcare Funding Falls, Again
Real provincial government healthcare funding per-person has fallen again this year in Ontario, the third year in a row. Since 2009 real funding per-person has fallen 2.6% – $63 per person. Across Canada real per person funding is in its fourth consecutive year of increase. Since 2009, real provincial funding across Canada is up $89 … Keep reading »
Public Sector Unionization Grows
The composition of the labour movement has fundamentally changed over the last twenty years. This article reviews the dramatic changes in public and private sector unionization and some surprising differences that have emerged between Ontario and the rest of Canada. Potential for growth is possible, even in the public sector. Ontario has 1.3 million public … Keep reading »
Privatizing Healthcare: More Private Funding of Hospitals
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reports that total expenditures on Ontario hospitals increased to $23.7-billion in 2016. This is an increase of 2.4% since 2015 and 6.1% since 2012. While provincial government expenditures increased 4.7% over the four years between 2012 and 2016, private sector expenditures on hospitals increased at a much faster … Keep reading »
Ontario Government Program Spending is far Lower than the Rest of Canada
The Ontario government spent 1.6 per cent less of provincial Gross Domestic Product (GDP) compared to the other provinces in 2010-11. With sharp cutbacks in Ontario, that gap had increased to 2.1 per cent by 2014/15. On this basis, Ontario spent about $15-billion less on programs than the other provinces and territories. On a per … Keep reading »
Health Care Spending In Ontario Continues to Decline
Contrary to the hysteria from conservatives, health care spending continues to decline as a percentage of the provincial budget. Last year, health care accounted for 38.5 per cent of total expenditures, this year the government plans to bring it down to 38.3 per cent. This continues the trend downward since 2003/04 when health care accounted … Keep reading »
The Coming Battle: Healthcare Privatization and the Ontario Election
In the past, capitalists had given many aspects of healthcare a pass in Canada and Ontario. There was a general preference to leave medicare intact from the lower costs it provided employers, especially in export sectors like auto, that gave Canadian companies a cost advantage. But, with the shifting balance of class power and the … Keep reading »