Defend Public Healthcare

Attack on health care worker benefits:  The Ontario Ford government has specifically targeted in the Budget health care worker compensation  through cuts in premium  payments (e.g. shift payments), overtime, and sick leave. "Improving" scheduling is also part of the plan.  The stated goal   is to cut $250 million annually through such changes by 2021-22. This is squarely aimed at hourly paid employees. Ma nagers don't get overtime and premium payments, and they are not likely to be targeted by attendance management programs or scheduling "improvements".  With about half a million hourly paid employees working in health care a $250 million cut would mean about  a cut of about $500 per employee per year.   The Ford government claims in the Budget that this will have "no impact on patient care or front-line staff."   In fact, a $500 cut may be low -- as i t will be especially hard to harvest such amounts from  contracted , for-p...

A Great West Life Assurance executive recently claimed that private insurance for drug plans was becoming unsustainable -- unless changes are made. Almost all private drug insurance plans are paid through employer paid  insured benefit plans (often bargained with trade unions). In fact, although there were significant increases during the 90s and the first decade of this century, drug costs for insured benefit plans have leveled off. For 2010, 2011, and 2012 private drug insurance costs have risen just less than 3.1% per year on average, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information  (Table A). This is a small fraction of the increases in the 1990s (where the average annual increase was 10.5%) or the first decade of this century (10.3% average annual increase). Part of the slowdown in costs is that some high priced blockbuster patented drugs are coming to the end of their patent protection and are now facing competition from lower priced generic version...