Category Health economics
Provincial Government Health Spending: The Equity Dimension
The meeting of the federal and provincial/territorial health ministers in Halifax on Thursday will be preoccupied with the sustainability of health expenditures and the coming negotiations over the renewal of the health care accord. Naturally, the provinces want to ensure that federal transfers continue to rise to meet their needs while the federal government will […]
Does Economic Growth Lower Workplace Absenteeism?
It’s just past the middle of the term and the number of students coming to class seems to have taken a bit of a drop and there seem to be a lot of people off sick. It has also been a particularly gloomy few days in the news with talk of recessions and rumors of […]
Attack of the health care zombies
In his inaugural Economy Lab post, Chris Auld does a superb job of demolishing the idea that a healthy lifestyle substantially decreases demand on the health care system. He calls it the "zombie argument" because: it has been repeatedly shot, stabbed, and poked at with sharp sticks, but it won't just die. People still believe that […]
Why is canine cataract surgery so expensive?
In Ontario, a opthamologist is paid $441.95 per eye for cataract surgery. In Ottawa, the cost of canine cataract surgery is about $4,000. (I cannot give you an exact price, as the Ontario Veterinary Medicine Association's suggested fee guide is not available to non-members). Why do opthamologists charge more to repair a dog's eye than a human's eye?
Are faith and health care substitutes?
"Every single 1st world nation that is irreligious shares a set of distinctive attributes. These include handgun control, anti-corporal punishment and anti-bullying policies, rehabilitative rather than punitive incarceration, intensive sex education that emphasizes condom use, reduced socio-economic disparity via tax and welfare systems combined with comprehensive health care…" Gregory Paul and Phil Zuckerman. People in […]
Health Outcomes & Health Financing: An Example
I finally got around to looking at the OECD Health Data release for 2011 and as is my habit, I spend some time looking at the overview reports and charts as well as playing around with some of the data. The first chart provided by the OECD that I want to draw your attention to […]
Spending on Public Health Programs: Yet Another National Divide
In 1974, the Lalonde Report titled “A New Perspective on the Health of Canadians” argued that we needed to look beyond traditional health care focused on medicine. If we wished to improve the health of the public, a broad determinants of health approach focused on things like lifestyle choice and behaviour needed to be pursued.
People of Plenty
American historian David Potter’s book People of Plenty argued that resource abundance shaped the American attitude towards possibility and opportunity. Abundant resources set the stage for wealth accumulation and created a society that believes that everyone can become rich through their own work and effort and that initiative and opportunity are the key to social […]
An Aging Society: Another View
The debate over the sustainability of public health care has often focused on an aging population as one of the key drivers with apocalyptic scenarios of a silver tsunami of seniors washing over the health care system and bankrupting the system.
Canada’s Kobyashi Maru Test
In the Star Trek universe, one of the curriculum requirements for Starfleet Officer cadets is the infamous Kobyashi Maru test – the test of ultimate character and command ability.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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