Defend Public Healthcare

Government data suggests for-profit long-term care bed s are less desired by the public than not-for-profit beds.    There are long wait lists for a beds in long-term care (LTC) facilities.  (This is driven by the government's decision to add only a few new LTC beds despite the rapid growth in the number of people 85 and older, the main users of these beds.) But some LTC facilities attract longer line-ups than others. In early 2014, there were 41,842 beds at private, for-profit LTC facilities in Ontario (54% of the total of 78,138 beds).  But only 6,781 people in the community put themselves on a wait list for one of these beds.  In other words, each for-profit bed has 0.16 people on the wait list for it.    In contrast, there were 19,599 not-for-profit LTC beds (25% of the total), but 9,113 people put themselves on the wait list for them.   In other words, there were 0.46 people waiting for a not-for-profit bed.   That is 2.9 times higher demand than fo

A new study from the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows   sharply   increasing inefficiency in the Canadian for-profit health care insurance industry.   The study indicates that less and less of the  premiums in employer health insurance plans are paid out in benefits by the for-profit insurance industry.   Since 1991, the amount paid out in benefits has declined from 92% to 74% in 2011.   The rest goes for profits, administration, and other items.     The benefit pay-out is less than required by US law - - which now requires that 80% to 85% of health insurance premiums are paid out in clinical care and quality improvement.   While this is bad, plans purchased from for-profit insurance corporations by individuals do much worse, with benefits paid declining from 46% to 38% of premiums .   In contrast, employers that self-insure  (where employers pay claims themselves and purchase only processing services from insurance companies) do much better – with be

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