Defend Public Healthcare

As costs have gone way up for private health care insurance over the last decade, 12.6 million Americans have fallen off employer-based plans  (the main form of private insurance, covering close to half the population).   The percentage of employers offering health insurance fell  from 68% to 60% according to data in a new report from  Kaiser .    But the coverage provided by employer-based private insurance  has also shrunk -- even as premiums increased 113% over the last decade.   Deductibles have sharply increased.   In 2011, 31% of employees have deductibles of $1,000 or over.  That is up from 10%  in 2006.  Even 22% of workers at large firms now have deductibles of $1,000 or more, up from just 6% in 2006.  About three-in-four covered workers pay a copayment (a fixed dollar payment) for a visit to a primary care physician or a specialist physician, in addition to any general annual deductible.  Most workers also face additional cost sharing for a hospital admission or

As part of his campaign to justify his 'last resort' plan to freeze public sector wages, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak told reporters that he 'would try to negotiate with the province’s unions to ensure wages don’t rise faster than economic growth in the future.' Well public sector wage settlements this year are about half of the inflation rate. This means wages are falling in terms of what you can actually buy, never mind getting any part of the economic growth of the province. Public sector settlements are also lower than private sector settlements. And they were lower than inflation and lower than private sector settlements last year too. Faster than economic growth? It's hard to solve economic problems if you prefer to make up myths and blame the innocent.

The premiums for the private employer based health care insurance increased 9% in 2011, according to a new study from Kaiser.    In the absence of a public plan, this is the main way non-elderly Americans get insurance, with about 150 million covered.   While that increase is significantly higher than the last few years, it is in line with the trend over the last ten years, which saw premiums for family plans increase 113%.   The workers' share of the premium has increased by even more: 131% .   That compares with wage increases of 34% on average (and that average includes the wealthy, who have gotten most of the wage increases).   Family health care premiums hit the (incredible) level of $15,073 (US) annually.    On average, workers pay $4,129 and employers pay $10,944 toward those annual premiums. There has been a lot criticism about the ten year agreement to increase the Canadian federal government's transfers for health care 6% annually.  But over ten years that wo

The U.S. based Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) and the Association for the Healthcare Environment (AHE) are partnering to strengthen the relationship between infection prevention (IP) and environmental services (EVS) to reduce infections. A joint educational campaign, "Clean Spaces, Healthy Patients: Leaders in Infection Prevention and Environmental Services Working Together for Better Patient Outcomes," will incorporate educational resources, training materials and other solutions to help IP and EVS professionals combat the spread of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs). Cooperation between IP and EVS staff is an excellent idea. However, the privatization of environmental services will undermine this cooperation. From our experience, for-profit cleaning corporations prefer to keep direct control of EVS staff to maintain profits. IP and nursing staff may have to make requests to the corporate hierarchy rather than

The health care funding plans by the Liberals would see annual average increases over the next four years of about 3.2%. For the Progressive Conservatives, the increases would be just slightly less (for the reason noted in yesterday's post). This contrasts with promises from the federal government to increase their transfers for health care by 6% annually for the same time period. That's almost double what the province would put in  (and much closer to the actual cost pressures facing health care). However, when you consider the increasing federal transfers for health care will actually pay for almost half of the provincial funding increase, the money for health care actually raised by the province  would only be about 1.6%.  Compare that with 6% from the federal government coffers. In other words, the federal government percentage increase is almost four times the increase that would come from money raised by the province . Getting almost four times the increase from a

A few months ago, the Auditor General reviewed  the Liberal health care funding plan for the next two years and reported that those increases would average 3.6% annually. This is much less than previous years (about half) and the Auditor was openly skeptical that the government could implement this without significant health care cuts, even with a wage freeze. Hospitals for example " may have little alternative but to cut services."  Strong words for an auditor.   But now, inexplicably, buried in the costings of the Liberal program, the Liberals have determined that they won't even meet this.  They will only increase health care funding by 3.6% next year, 2012-13. The year after that the increase will fall to 2.86%, a loss of .74%. This will mean the loss of $360 million dollars in health care funding annually, starting in 2012-13.   The average annual increase will be 3.2% rather than 3.6%. The Liberal four year increase would also be about 3.2% annually, bas

An earlier report indicated potential problems with health care uniforms contaminated by superbugs.  Now, it's privacy curtains.   Researchers in Chicago reported this week that privacy curtains in hospitals are often contaminated with potentially dangerous bacteria. "There is growing recognition that the hospital environment plays an important role in the transmission of infections in the health care setting and it's clear that these (privacy curtains) are potentially important sites of contamination because they are frequently touched by patients and providers," Dr. Michael Ohl told Reuters Health . Tests detected MRSA and VRE.  The study found significant contamination that occurred very rapidly after new curtains were placed. "The vast majority of curtains showed contamination with potentially significant bacteria within a week of first being hung, and many were hanging for longer than three or four weeks," Dr. Ohl noted. "We need to think a