Defend Public Healthcare

In a recent long-term report on the economy , the Ontario government recognized that own-source Ontario government revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) has declined over the last fifteen years.   The decline is equal to 2 percentage points of the province's GDP. That means the Ontario government is currently losing $14 billion annually.  With that revenue, the deficit (which was $11.3 billion last year) would be gone and we would have cash to spare. But the government also forecasts that own-source revenue  as a percentage of GDP will  continue to decline over the next twenty years as well.     The plan is to cut Ontario government revenue by another 1.2% of GDP.  In today's economy that would add $8.6 billion to the deficit, increasing the deficit by about 70%.     In total, over 35 years, the plan is to cut government revenue by 3.2% of GDP.  That is equal to an annual cut in government revenue of $22.6 billion in today's ec

Revenue prospects for this year:   An  earlier post  looked at poor job creation in Ontario and the impact that might have on obtaining the revenue goals the government has set for this year.  Last week's jobs report for July was  dreadful on a Canada-wide basis.  But the report noted Ontario saw some pick up in  July , with 15,100 new jobs overall.  However, the job growth in July was all part-time; Ontario actually lost 29,300 full time jobs .  That is consistent with the pattern since July 2013: all the new jobs in Ontario have been part-time, while the number of full time jobs has shrunk 0.4%.   Moreover, the first seven months of 2014 still average only 43,000 more jobs than the first seven months of 2013, less than half the Ontario government's goal of 100,000 new jobs in 2014. Update: As widely reported, the Stats Can Labour Force Survey for July got it wrong.  The corrected report for Ontario provides some better news.  Instead of a 15,100 new jobs in Ontar

With the election over, pressure to cut public programs has become quite intense. In almost all of the corporate owned media someone is barking on about it. Another option -- increasing revenue from corporations and the wealthy is not mentioned.  However, data clearly indicates that Ontario does not have an overspending problem compared to the other provinces. Instead, it indicates Ontario has very low revenue.  Ontario has the lowest public spending of all the provinces on a per capita basis (see the chart from the 2014 Ontario Budget below).  So there is little reason to suspect that we have an over-spending problem.  If anything, this suggests we have an under-spending problem. The Ontario government has also now reported in the 2014 Budget that Ontario has the lowest revenue per capita of any province.  This is particularly notable as other provinces are quite a bit poorer than Ontario and therefore have a much more limited ability to pay for public spending.  

If Ontario tries to cut its way to a balanced budget, weak employment figures suggest the cuts may have to get a whole lot worse.  Here's why.   In the Budget, the government projected 100,000 job growth in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. That's an annual increase of about 1.4%.  But the government is having a problem meeting its jobs target in 2014.   Comparing the average of the first six months of 2013 with the first six of 2014 shows an increase from 6.861 million jobs to only 6.904 million.  That's only 43,000 new jobs over the year, an increase 0.65% -- less than half of the government's target.   The Public Sector: Given sharp public sector austerity, the main brake on job creation has been public sector employment.  Even without Tim Hudak, public sector employment has decreased between the first six months of 2013 and the first six months of 2014 by some 40,000 jobs.   The good news is that the decline may be easing.  For the most recent m

Ontario has far fewer hospital beds than other provinces.  Compared to other countries, we are even further behind.  For the club of the 33 richest nations (the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development), the average is 4.8 hospital beds per 1000 population in 2012 (or the reported year closest to that).  The OECD reports    just 2.74 beds per 1000 population for Canada for 2011. (The OECD data can be downloaded here) .    Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data suggests a very similar average for Canada -- 2.79 beds per 1000 population in 2012. Ontario beds however only come out at 2.34 hospital beds per 1000 population.  For the rest of Canada, it is 3.24 beds, closer to the norm. ( The CIHI data can be downloaded here) In other words,  the rest of Canada has 38% more hospital beds per 1,000 persons than Ontario.   The average of the 33 OECD nations is more than two times higher than Ontario.  In 1990, according to OECD data, the OECD countries ha

Provincial government hospital expenditure per person in Ontario compared to the rest of Canada based on CIHI data. A large gap has grown between what the Ontario provincial government spends on hospitals and what other Canadian provinces spend.  Since 2004/5 the gap has grown from a mere $9.43 per person to $316.50 per person in 2012/13.  Nine years ago, the difference was 1%. Now, t he other provinces and territories  (as a whole)  spend  23% more per person on hospitals than Ontario does.    That is an astonishing difference.  Or at least the size of the difference is astonishing.   But that gap completely fits with the low level of nursing hours per inpatient in Ontario compared to the rest of Canada, the higher number of nursing sensitive "adverse events ", the low level of hospital beds in Ontario , the low level of hospital admissions in  Ontario , and the high level of hospital bed occupancy in Ontario. Ontario has fallen so far behind almost entirely d