Tag Archives: health care

How Bernie Sanders blew an opportunity on health care reform

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Though Vermont senator Bernie Sanders is surging in some polls, the response to his universal ‘Medicare for all’ health care plan was mixed. (Facebook)

Bernie Sanders might just be the American version of Jeremy Corbyn after all. USflag

On the eve of Sunday night’s Democratic presidential debate, Sanders, the Vermont senator with a self-proclaimed ‘democratic socialist’ charge to win the Democratic presidential nomination, released a more detailed plan for achieving universal health care. By its own terms, the Sanders plan would provide ‘Medicare for all,’ though it actually goes much further by eliminating co-pay and deductibles, adding to the sticker shock of a federal program that would cost $1.38 trillion annually. It also comes with huge tax increases that would give US citizens, in one fell swoop, higher tax rates than many ‘social welfare states’ in western Europe.

Many critics, including those on the left who should be sympathetic to achieving even more universal health care, have been skeptical.

Ezra Klein at Vox chides the Sanders plan for omitting details about how a single-payer system would be forced to deny many benefits and treatments, just as Medicare does today. Paul Krugman at The New York Times calls the Sanders plan an exercise in fantasy budgeting, arguing that it relies on wild assumptions about the savings it can achieve in health care spending through a single-payer system. Jonathan Chait at The New Yorker argues that the next president will invariably face a Republican-controlled House (if not Senate) and that introducing a single-payer system would be impossible.

All of these are valid, reasonable criticisms of the Sanders plan.

But if you really believe that president Barack Obama’s health care reforms are just one step on the way to universal health care and, like Sanders, you are committed to a single-payer system, there was always a much better policy plan:

Lower the eligibility age of Medicare from its current level (65 and older) to allow all Americans aged 55 or older to participate. 

It could have been, for Sanders, a beautiful political maneuver that would put both his rival for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, and congressional Republicans on the defensive, all while having the benefit of being generally great policy.  Continue reading How Bernie Sanders blew an opportunity on health care reform

Australia’s government changes law to punish anti-vaxxers

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He may be one of Australia’s most conservative prime ministers in recent history, but Tony Abbott isn’t above using government as a nudge to coerce better public policy outcomes.australia new

Earlier this week, Abbott announced that Australia’s national government is serious about compelling parents to vaccinate their children from diseases, such as measles, mumps, rubella and whooping cough, that were largely eradicated in the post-vaccination era, and that are now returning as larger numbers of parents refuse to vaccinate their children out of fears of autism or other untoward health effects. Doctors overwhelmingly argue that there’s no link between vaccination and autism or other severe side effects.

The anti-vaccination movement has become an increasing problem throughout the world for many reasons, including both pious Muslims in northern Nigeria (who have resisted polio vaccinations) and health-conscious leftists in California (with fears over autism). The Abbott government’s step is one of the most aggressive steps that any government in the world has taken to coerce parents to accept vaccination.

Starting in January 2016, the government will no longer recognize an exemption for ‘conscientious objectors,’ which currently allows nearly 40,000 Australians to refuse vaccination for their children. That, in turn, has boosted the number of incidents of childhood diseases that had largely disappeared (and not only among children). The change means that Australian parents stand to lose funding of up to A$2100 (equivalent to US$1600) per child in tax credits and up to A$15,000 (equivalent to US$11,400) in additional government funding, including rebates for child care, if they continue to refuse to vaccinate.

With enough participation in a vaccination program, not every person needs to be vaccinated, because of the so-called ‘herd immunity’ that comes when a high percentage of a population has been protected. It provided protect to those who can’t tolerate the vaccine, including very young children or the immune-compromised. But it also creates a ‘free-rider’ problem, whereby any given individual has an incentive to opt out of vaccination due to the fear, real or imagined, of any risk that might come with receiving a particular vaccine.   Continue reading Australia’s government changes law to punish anti-vaxxers

Three things you should know about Sweden’s new health minister

wikstromPhoto credit to Philip Mauritzson.

Stand aside, Sebastian Kurz.Sweden

The competition for top heartthrob among Europe’s national government ministers just got a lot tougher with the October 3 appointment of Gabriel Wikström, the 29-year-old minister for public health, health care and sports in Sweden’s new center-left government, whose dimpled smile, steely blue eyes and blond hair are sending Turks (and others) swooning on Twitter, and the young Social Democrat is quickly becoming a sensation far beyond Sweden’s borders:

The good-looking Wikström has become something of a sensation among Turkish teens since he was named as a minister in the new Swedish government headed by Prime Minister Stefan Loefven.

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So who is Wikström? Why has he been appointed a minister? And beyond his smile and boyish good looks, what are the policy issues that he’ll face as a minister?

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Here are three points that tell you everything you need to know about Sweden’s newest export. Continue reading Three things you should know about Sweden’s new health minister

Miliband shifts Labour’s focus from austerity to health care

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If it wasn’t already clear, Ed Miliband’s final conference speech before next May’s general election indicated that he intends to wage his campaign on the basis of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service — and not a full-scale attack on the ‘austerity’ anti-deficit policies of David Cameron’s coalition government.United Kingdom Flag Icon

It’s hard to believe that Miliband has now been the leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party one year longer than former  prime minister Gordon Brown was, especially after the bravura performance that Brown delivered for the ‘Better Together’ campaign, which may have swayed enough Scottish voters to reject independence in the surprisingly close referendum.

When he won the leadership in September 2010, upsetting his opponent and brother, former foreign minister David Miliband, it was a shock. While Labour’s MPs and the party faithful narrowly preferred David, unions and other affiliated Labour groups gave Ed just enough of an edge to narrowly defeat the more seasoned Miliband, who promptly left frontline politics and moved to New York.

In the past four years, Ed Miliband has benefitted from the polling lead that Labour has consistently held against the Conservatives, who have been mired in unpopular decisions to slash the national budget after years of more permissive spending under Brown and his predecessor Tony Blair, for whom Brown served as chancellor of the exchequer.

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RELATED: Why England needs a series of regional parliaments

RELATED: What to make of Cameron’s ‘night of the long knives’

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In the first year of Tory-led government, the British economy grew by 1.7% — sluggish in absolute terms, but vigorous by what would follow. In 2012, British GDP fell to 0.3% before rebounding last year to 1.7% and a forecasted growth rate of 3.2% in 2014.

As the economy has improved, it means that it might not be enough for Miliband to attack Cameron and the current chancellor, George Osborne, for inflicting greater damage on the economy by cutting spending in a time of low economic growth. While it may be true that Osborne’s budget cuts didn’t necessarily promote growth, it’s unavoidable fact that the United Kingdom is now growing faster than the rest of the European Union, which emerged from the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the 2010-12 eurozone debt crisis to face a growing deflation threat today. Italy, which has struggled to enact reforms under its energetic new prime minister Matteo Renzi, recently entered a triple-dip recession.

Polls, meanwhile, show an increasingly tight race. Labour’s once dominant lead is shrinking, in the most recent September 18-19 YouGov/Sunday Times poll to just 4%. If the election were held today, Labour would edge out the Tories by a margin of 36% to 32%, with the eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) winning 16% and the junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, just 7%. That could result in any number of outcomes, including a Labour minority government, a Conservative minority government, or the continuation of the Tory-Liberal Democratic coalition.

That goes a long way in explaining why Miliband is increasingly shifting from an anti-austerity message to a campaign that places greater funding for an increasingly burdened National Health Service (NHS) at the heart of his bid to defeat Cameron in eight months’ time. Continue reading Miliband shifts Labour’s focus from austerity to health care

Zuma is strongest president on HIV/AIDS in South African history

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When Jacob Zuma, now poised for an almost certain second term as South Africa’s president, faced criminal rape charges in 2006 stemming from sexual relations with a woman that he knew to be HIV positive, he later remarked that he didn’t use a condom and claimed that he took a shower afterwards to reduce the risk of contracting HIV. south africa flag

So when he emerged in 2007 as the heir apparent in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), there wasn’t much hope that Zuma would necessarily bring an incredible amount of sophistication to HIV/AIDS policy in a country that’s long suffered from health policy failures.

Yet almost immediately after becoming the country’s third post-apartheid president in 2009, Zuma effected nearly a 180-degree turn on HIV/AIDS policy. There was little doubt that his HIV/AIDS policy could be any worse than that of his predecessors.

Notwithstanding the triumph of Nelson Mandela’s historic presidency, Mandela himself admitted in the 2000s that he didn’t do enough to acknowledge the growing threat of HIV/AIDS infection, which would ultimately kill Mandela’s youngest son Makgatho, a fact that Mandela made public upon his son’s death in 2005.

His successor, Thabo Mbeki, was even worse. A proponent of aberrant medical theories that HIV, in fact, might not cause AIDS, Mbeki stalled as the rest of sub-Saharan Africa embraced new treatments and prevention strategies, leading to what some studies claim to be over 300,000 premature deaths in South Africa.

South Africa, like the rest of southern Africa, has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates. Like many issues in South Africa, race plays a significant role — a recent survey showed that the HIV rate among black Africans is around 15%, with a 3% rate among the ‘coloured’ (the South African term for mixed-race persons) population and a 0.3% rate for whites. The highest risk is for black females, aged 15 to 49, who are affected at a rate of 23.2%.

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RELATEDEven with victory assured, is the ANC’s future at risk?

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Zuma is almost certain to be reelected as president after the May 7 parliamentary elections that will, once again, return the ruling ANC to power.  But amid widespread unhappiness over South Africa’s economic performance and its government’s record on everything from individual rights to corruption, Zuma’s policy turn on HIV/AIDS could ultimately become the strongest policy accomplishment of an otherwise disappointing presidency.   Continue reading Zuma is strongest president on HIV/AIDS in South African history

In Québec, health care is the sleeper issue

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Headlines throughout Québec’s raucous election campaign have highlighted emotionally charged issues, such as a new charter on secularism, a potential referendum on independence and new regulations promoting the use of French. Nonetheless, surveys show that voters routinely list health care as the top issue facing the province’s next government.Quebec Flag IconpngCanada Flag Icon

With three former health ministers leading the three top parties in the province, including Liberal leader Philippe Couillard, a former neurosurgeon, there’s no election better placed for examining how to improve Québec’s health care options.

The provincial government’s role in the health care system began in 1961, when it signed up to the federal Canadian single-payer health care system and began reimbursing hospitals for medical services. A decade later, in 1971, Québec first agreed to reimburse services for non-hospital costs, and the provincial government began opening its own health clinics. Today, health care costs consume 51.8% of the province’s budget, excluding debt service. Governments of the past decade from both major parties have routinely increased health spending, even while attempting to rein in spending for other areas.

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RELATED: Peladeau candidacy transforms Québec provincial elections
RELATED: Will bilingualism doom the Liberals in Québec?

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Even before the Parti québécois (PQ) started slipping in the polls, Québec voters already disapproved of Pauline Marois’s performance as premier by a margin of nearly 2-to-1. It’s hard to believe that perceptions about her government’s performance on health care didn’t play a huge role in that. Though the PQ’s support started crumbling with a series of mishaps that brought a new independence referendum into direct focus, voters were already pre-disposed to flee Marois, who hasn’t kept her 2012 campaign promise to roll back an unpopular health tax introduced, ironically, by the Parti libéral du Québec (Liberal Party, or PLQ) that now is now projected to win a majority government after Monday’s vote. Continue reading In Québec, health care is the sleeper issue