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Showing posts from January, 2018

Government plans to take $400 annually from every employee -- and give it to employers

The government plans to cut employer  Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)  premiums $2.4 billion per year.  This is funded by cuts to workers compensation, as discussed below.   Here's the plan to cut employer premiums laid out in the 2016 Budget documents: The WSIB has taken significant steps to reduce costs, and its finances have been improved by growth in investment returns and insurable payrolls. After hitting a high of $14.2 billion in 2011, the unfunded liability was $6.8 billion as of the WSIB’s 2015 third quarter that ended September 30, 2015.  Due to progress made to date, employer premiums have not been increased for three years. In its ‘2015 Economic Statement,’ the WSIB estimated that when the unfunded liability component is removed from the premium rate,  it will be able to deliver $2.4 billion annually in premium reductions. This would represent an average premium rate reduction of about 40 per cent,  with the average premium rate declining from $2.46 per $

Six more problems with Public Private Partnerships (P3s)

The Auditor General (AG) has again identified issues in her  annual report   which reflect problems with Ontario health care capacity and privatization.   First, here are six key problems with  the maintenance of the 16 privatized P3 ("public private partnership") hospitals in Ontario: There are long-term ongoing disputes with privatized P3 contractors over the P3 agreements, including about what is covered by the P3  (or “AFP” as the government likes to call them) contract. The hospitals are required to pay higher than reasonable rates to the P3 contractor for  maintenance work the contractor has deemed to be outside of the P3 contract. Hospitals are almost forced to use P3 contractors to do maintenance work the contractors deem outside of the P3 contract or face the prospect of transferring the risk associated with maintaining the related hospital assets from the private-sector company back to the hospital