Jump to content

Bernier's Party at 13% in the polls


Recommended Posts

 

Sounds like it sucks to be sick in Ontario. Given what I've seen of other issues in Ontario the fundamental problem is probably good accountable government and lack thereof.  Its not that we don't have that problem too it just seems worse in Ontario and it apparently affects your health system worse.

 

Over the past two decades or more Ontario's health care system has suffered death by a thousand cuts. And now, perhaps ironically, a practical solution has been established, which is assisted death. It is the only realistic alternative to an utterly broken system, at least in the GTA. Perhaps some outlying areas offer better services but I doubt it. A recent media story highlighted the plight of a patient in London ON who was reportedly informed by hospital staff that the alternative to what he considered inferior care was assisted death. Perhaps it's my age, but I now know of a handful of people who've chosen this option. A good friend, whom I'd known for about five decades, chose an assisted death last year over returning to hospital to deal with his stage 4 cancer. It's my preferred solution as well. As I couldn't practically access the care necessary to properly diagnose and potentially treat the condition I suffer, I have simply accepted the likely outcomes - legal blindness and becoming wheelchair bound - and will obtain an approval for an assisted death when I decide that my quality of life no longer warrants remaining alive. That's the health care reality in Ontario these days.

Edited by turningrite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

20,000 grandmas and grandpas in Canada don't do this.  I would submit that if we paid attention to costs and service levels - if we even had a way to discuss such things intelligently - then things would be better.  Funny how so many of these things come down to the arguments being too dumb, and immigration too.

100,000 extra grandmas and grandpas over the course of five years sure as hell ain't gonna help.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

100,000 extra grandmas and grandpas over the course of five years sure as hell ain't gonna help.

Argus: Yes, and these senior immigrants will presumably experience Western lifestyles and longevity, and will probably on average live for 16 to 20 years following their arrival in this country, meaning that at any given point in time in the future there will be upwards of 320,000 to 400,000 residing in Canada. I believe the Canadian Medical Association has estimated the annual public health care costs of seniors to be $12K on a per capita basis, meaning that in today's dollars these newcomers, who haven't paid into the system, will generate an additional annual fiscal burden ranging from $3.8 billion to $4.8 billion - half of this alone to be borne by Ontario taxpayers. Just don't trying getting access to necessary medical care if you have paid into the system for years. You're not the the priority. I can assure you of this based on bitter experience. 

Edited by turningrite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

100,000 extra grandmas and grandpas over the course of five years sure as hell ain't gonna help.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/041019/dq041019a-eng.htm

that says 3.3 million visits to ER 15 years ago or so.   That would be .6% which admittedly is something.   But the problem with healthcare is a lot worse than .6% capacity overflow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

1.What an ignorant and poorly reasoned perspective you bring to the table on this. Obviously, you've never had to deal with a really serious illness in the context of Ontario's no longer universal (unless one interprets it as universally inadequate) health care system.

2. My view on this is based on cold, hard experience. If the system actually worked when I most need it to I'd likely have a different perspective.

3. Ontario can't afford immigrant seniors entering the system when it can't offer decent health care to its citizens who've dutifully paid taxes to support the system for decades. I think that's a pretty reasonable and fair comment. Perhaps if you too live in Ontario you'll become seriously ill and figure this out for yourself.

1. Well, yes I have but the thing you have to realize is that discussion about numbers and capacity first and foremost.  Having a heart is important in life, it's true, but horrible service is a result of a broken *system* and a public that doesn't expect more and therefore puts up with it.   And yes of course I have dealt with the system.

2. That is what is wrong with the system.  Your view is WRONG.  if 90% of people have an 'ok' experience and 10% have a horrible one, what does that say ?  If the public paid attention beyond their own personal experience.  If people spent time looking at CIHI numbers and brought up ER wait times and health costs every election then we would have a better system.

3. Well, sorry my friend but you have already proven that you don't have the goods to discuss systems.  You want to make it about emotion, then I ask you to think about those poor seniors who need help.   Ontario can afford much better, but could actually figure out how to give more for less if people cared more.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/041019/dq041019a-eng.htm

that says 3.3 million visits to ER 15 years ago or so.   That would be .6% which admittedly is something.   But the problem with healthcare is a lot worse than .6% capacity overflow.

I'm not sure what relevancy you attach to this. Elderly people don't just visit ERs. They make much, MUCH more extensive use of health care resources than other people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1. Well, yes I have but the thing you have to realize is that discussion about numbers and capacity first and foremost.  Having a heart is important in life, it's true, but horrible service is a result of a broken *system* and a public that doesn't expect more and therefore puts up with it.   And yes of course I have dealt with the system.

2. That is what is wrong with the system.  Your view is WRONG.  if 90% of people have an 'ok' experience and 10% have a horrible one, what does that say ?  If the public paid attention beyond their own personal experience.  If people spent time looking at CIHI numbers and brought up ER wait times and health costs every election then we would have a better system.

3. Well, sorry my friend but you have already proven that you don't have the goods to discuss systems.  You want to make it about emotion, then I ask you to think about those poor seniors who need help.   Ontario can afford much better, but could actually figure out how to give more for less if people cared more.

 

 

1.) In my estimation, the system is broken beyond repair. I've talked to several other people, including some suffering serious illness like myself and others with more mundane problems, and I haven't heard many "good news" stories, particularly among those in the former category. One of my friends, who's in his 80s, severely (in more than one place) broke his dominant arm when falling on ice a couple years ago and got a cast and sling after waiting at the hospital for about 12 hours and then was sent home and told home care would show up at his apartment to check up on him. Well, no home care worker showed up. After not being able to reach him by telephone, some of us were finally able to get into his apartment to find out that he'd fallen and was unable to get off the floor, where he'd remained for a couple days, and couldn't even feed himself or adequately perform other daily activities. Apparently, nobody at the hospital assessed whether he had supports available to assist him upon his return home. After finding him, his friends took turns helping him out until he could connect with home care and arrange for necessary services. In another case, an acquaintance close to my own age explained in mock horror and with a sense of disbelief the circumstances of emergency surgery he'd recently undergone, where almost all the intake and pre-op testing, assessment and transmission of medical advice was conducted in the hospital's public waiting area as there was insufficient space available to do so in the ER area. The surgery itself was the only thing that was done privately in a specified medical area of the hospital. Anybody who thinks such circumstances are rare in Ontario is burying their head in the sand.

2.)  Why is my view "wrong"? This seems a bizarrely judgmental assessment on your part. I strongly suspect that 90% of patients do not have a good experience when dealing with the health care system, and particularly the hospital system. But you need not rely only on my opinion. And article in the G&M earlier the year points to the capacity problems facing Ontario's health case system (link below). The author outlines some of the system's serious shortcomings, noting that "The health-care system is now so thinly stretched that even the demands of routine medical care are beyond our capability." Another piece, published in the Toronto Sun earlier this year (link below), points to polling indicating increasing dissatisfaction with health care services and a growing inclination to agree that private health care should be allowed to address this.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/now-more-than-ever-we-need-to-solve-ontarios-health-care-crisis-of-capacity/article37490512/

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-canadians-want-options-to-a-failing-healthcare-system

3.) As I've indicated, my views reflect my own experiences but also I believe reflect the experiences and views of many others. It's not emotional to believe you've been scammed by paying taxes for years based on an understanding that necessary health care will be available to you when you needed it only to be told that you're "uninsured" when you really need to access these services. Wasn't that the essential problem Canada's health care system was supposed to solve when it was first instituted? The system is completely broken. Get rid of it and replace it with a model based on premiums, contributory eligibility and private sector options.

Edited by turningrite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Ok, fair enough but the point is that their numbers are tiny.

Their costs aren't.

High-Cost Users of Ontario's Healthcare Services

Approximately 1.5% of Ontario's population, represented by the top 5% highest cost-incurring users of Ontario's hospital and home care services, account for 61% of hospital and home care costs. 

Senior high-cost users (HCUs) are estimated to represent 60% of all HCUs in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999548/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770942/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Argus said:

Their costs aren't.

High-Cost Users of Ontario's Healthcare Services

Approximately 1.5% of Ontario's population, represented by the top 5% highest cost-incurring users of Ontario's hospital and home care services, account for 61% of hospital and home care costs. 

Senior high-cost users (HCUs) are estimated to represent 60% of all HCUs in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999548/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770942/

You're point is well taken. There's another perspective as well, which is that the Canadian Medical Association estimates that the health care costs of seniors  average $12K annually. Thus, assuming the health of those who arrive as immigrant seniors to be roughly similar to that of other Canadian seniors, it's estimated that the total health care program cost for this immigration category is roughly $4B per year, half of that borne by already burdened Ontario taxpayers. As for MH's "tiny" numbers assertion, assuming that the average immigrant senior lives for 16 to 20 years following their arrival in this country, at a entry rate of 20,000 a year the total population of this group will be 320,000 to 400,000, which is hardly a tiny number.

Edited by turningrite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Argus said:

Their costs aren't.

High-Cost Users of Ontario's Healthcare Services

Approximately 1.5% of Ontario's population, represented by the top 5% highest cost-incurring users of Ontario's hospital and home care services, account for 61% of hospital and home care costs. 

Senior high-cost users (HCUs) are estimated to represent 60% of all HCUs in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3999548/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770942/

Ok, tie that to immigration now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Ok, tie that to immigration now.

Clearly adding 100,000 seniors is more costly than their basic numbers suggest. Seniors make up the majority of the high cost users, which means billions of dollars in extra health costs per year - for no benefit. So it makes no sense to bring in seniors. If people want to import their parents or grandparents they need to take out private health insurance for them first. Then they could be admitted as permanent residents (not immigrants) as long as their sponsor maintains that private health insurance.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Argus said:

 If people want to import their parents or grandparents they need to take out private health insurance for them first. Then they could be admitted as permanent residents (not immigrants) as long as their sponsor maintains that private health insurance.

On the first point, I absolutely agree with you. I believe that sponsored immigrants, including sponsored seniors, should be required to obtain health insurance covering the entire period of their sponsorship with the associated costs being guaranteed by their sponsors. The Supreme Court have Canada has ruled that the financial obligations of sponsorship in relation to coverage for other social program costs are legitimate and enforceable.

On the second point, I'm somewhat confused. All ordinary immigrants, sponsored or otherwise, are definitionally permanent residents. So, are you implying that a new category, perhaps designated as something like 'conditional residents' be created? I think the issue could more easily be addressed simply by changing sponsorship obligations to cover the need to maintain paid private insurance coverage throughout the sponsorship period. Such an obligation should also apply to employers who bring temporary workers into the country, if this is not already the case.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/20/2018 at 4:03 PM, turningrite said:

 

1.) In my estimation, the system is broken beyond repair. I've talked to several other people, including some suffering serious illness like myself and others with more mundane problems, and I haven't heard many "good news" stories, particularly among those in the former category.

2) One of my friends,  

3.)  Why is my view "wrong"? This seems a bizarrely judgmental assessment on your part.

4) https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-canadians-want-options-to-a-failing-healthcare-system

 

1) The Harper government extended support for the Canadian Institute for Health Information.  It's a good source. https://www.cihi.ca/en

2) Yes, these are striking stories and I don't usually defend Canadian the overall performance of our system on its own.

3) I should say your approach is wrong.  Look at the data.

4) Newspapers are a good source.

Look, I am not saying that the system is good.  I strongly feel that Canadian attitudes towards government services reflect a tradition of peasants accepting baubles from the Family Compact.  The place to start, to my view, is an informed view of where we are with costs and services.  If you bring emotionalism into it, then you will allow a whole sector of people who somehow thing that our health system is an example of patriotism.  

It's not.  Healthcare and Immigration (the subject of the thread, to get back to it) are systems.  There is always an emotional component because we are not robots and want the best for ourselves and those close to us, but we should be demanding better quality and less expensive at all times.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Argus said:

Clearly adding 100,000 seniors is more costly than their basic numbers suggest. Seniors make up the majority of the high cost users, which means billions of dollars in extra health costs per year - for no benefit. So it makes no sense to bring in seniors. If people want to import their parents or grandparents they need to take out private health insurance for them first. Then they could be admitted as permanent residents (not immigrants) as long as their sponsor maintains that private health insurance.

So your previous example seems to make the cost at 3X... so at 300K we are less than 1% over five years.  I know you don't believe immigration has economic advantages, but those who do might put it at .25% impact on GDP per year.... so I would say you are correct but it's not a big impact.

Bigger impacts on healthcare include poor planning, bad allocation of resources, other management issues.  

But I'm pretty sure your suggestion would raise some funds for healthcare also.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) The Harper government extended support for the Canadian Institute for Health Information.  It's a good source. https://www.cihi.ca/en

2) Yes, these are striking stories and I don't usually defend Canadian the overall performance of our system on its own.

3) I should say your approach is wrong.  Look at the data.

4) Newspapers are a good source.

Look, I am not saying that the system is good.  I strongly feel that Canadian attitudes towards government services reflect a tradition of peasants accepting baubles from the Family Compact.  The place to start, to my view, is an informed view of where we are with costs and services.  If you bring emotionalism into it, then you will allow a whole sector of people who somehow thing that our health system is an example of patriotism.  

It's not.  Healthcare and Immigration (the subject of the thread, to get back to it) are systems.  There is always an emotional component because we are not robots and want the best for ourselves and those close to us, but we should be demanding better quality and less expensive at all times.  

My argument isn't emotional at all. I accept that I'll die, and likely sooner rather than later, without reasonable access to necessary health services. My plan is to pursue an assisted death when I believe I no longer enjoy a reasonably acceptable quality of life. I used to think of myself as a progressive, but the situation I've faced has caused me to rationally and clear-headedly examine Canada's redistributive ideology and in so doing I've lost all confidence in its legitimacy. Let people keep their own money rather than give it away in taxes to fund programs they will likely never themselves be able to access in any substantial fashion. Let people buy private health insurance and otherwise find ways to pay their own way. Let immigrants who can survive on their own into the country. The "safety net" is dead. The layered subsidy system which has replaced it merely serves an entrenched fraction of the population. As the British economist Sir Paul Collier has noted, large-scale immigration in advanced countries tends over time to undermine social cohesion. I'm merely a canary in this coal mine. I can assure you that many more will come to realize the futility of maintaining this system. 

Edited by turningrite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, turningrite said:

1. The "safety net" is dead.

2. The layered subsidy system which has replaced it merely serves an entrenched fraction of the population.

3. As the British economist Sir Paul Collier has noted, large-scale immigration in advanced countries tends over time to undermine social cohesion. I'm merely a canary in this coal mine. I can assure you that many more will come to realize the futility of maintaining this system. 

1. No, we have wider care at a cheaper cost.  I'm not defending our system but 'no system' is vastly worst.

2. Like who ?  You are also changing the subject from immigration/healthcare to wider things.  Maybe it's taking it back to the OP.

3. Context is everything.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus:_How_Migration_Is_Changing_Our_World  "Mr Collier finds endless objections to a policy—more or less unlimited immigration—that no country has adopted"  I find that many arguments stake out an extreme position that is indefensible to start with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

So your previous example seems to make the cost at 3X... so at 300K we are less than 1% over five years.  I know you don't believe immigration has economic advantages, but those who do might put it at .25% impact on GDP per year.... so I would say you are correct but it's not a big impact.

These are seniors. Under the senior program they are not required to have any education or jobs skills or any ability to speak English. They are not expected to be in the work force.

19 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Bigger impacts on healthcare include poor planning, bad allocation of resources, other management issues.  

Sure. But is that a reason to add in 20,000 foreign seniors every year to the lines? That's a $4+ billion cost annually.  By way of scale, Newfoundland and Labrador spend $3 billion a year on health care.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Context is everything.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus:_How_Migration_Is_Changing_Our_World  "Mr Collier finds endless objections to a policy—more or less unlimited immigration—that no country has adopted"  I find that many arguments stake out an extreme position that is indefensible to start with.

Most published authors are critiqued. Where immigration is concerned, there's an industry that's become dependent on it, so rational criticism is often treated with disdain. So, it would be surprising were Collier, who works in this controversial field, not to face critics. On the other hand, he's respected enough to teach at Oxford and have been knighted by the Queen. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Argus said:

 Sure. But is that a reason to add in 20,000 foreign seniors every year to the lines? That's a $4+ billion cost annually.  By way of scale, Newfoundland and Labrador spend $3 billion a year on health care.

 

It's not $4B.  The math doesn't work that way.  It's not $200K per senior.  That would be almost the entire deficits some years under Harper...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

It's not $4B.  The math doesn't work that way.  It's not $200K per senior.  That would be almost the entire deficits some years under Harper...

It is roughly $4B, and maybe higher. The figure was cited in a news article I read the other day. If we admit 20,000 immigrant seniors a year and each one lives for 16 to 20 years following arrival, we'll eventually have a cumulative population of 320,000 to 400,000 of these immigrants living in Canada at any given point in time. And as the Canadian Medical Association has pegged the annual per capita cost of providing public health care services to an average senior in Canada at $12K, the health care costs associated with this cohort will be $3.8B to $4.8B annually. The math isn't that difficult to figure out and the costs are borne heavily by taxpayers in the major immigrant receiving provinces, particularly Ontario, which already faces a fiscal crisis. Obviously, we can't afford this program.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, turningrite said:

It is roughly $4B, and maybe higher. The figure was cited in a news article I read the other day. If we admit 20,000 immigrant seniors a year and each one lives for 16 to 20 years following arrival, we'll eventually have a cumulative population of 320,000 to 400,000 of these immigrants living in Canada at any given point in time. And as the Canadian Medical Association has pegged the annual per capita cost of providing public health care services to an average senior in Canada at $12K, the health care costs associated with this cohort will be $3.8B to $4.8B annually. The math isn't that difficult to figure out and the costs are borne heavily by taxpayers in the major immigrant receiving provinces, particularly Ontario, which already faces a fiscal crisis. Obviously, we can't afford this program.

Need some cites on this.  Also why didn't you figure mortality into it ?   Where did you get that the average senior coming to Canada lives 16 to 20 years ?  That's a minimum of 81 years ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Such fear of these 15-20K parents/grandparents a year.

Of course, they're looked at 'useless' by the scared people. Do you see your parents/grandparents as useless? Do you guys ever look at all of the variables involved?

When grandparents come to Canada, in most cases, a parent who was staying at home with the kids is now able to work. Not only that, but the parents/grandparents end up bringing most of their assets into Canada and that helps the economy as well. But it's more than just about the economy. 

Stop being so afraid of immigrants. If it wasn't for immigrants, Canada would fall behind. Did you know that:

The Immigration Department report, obtained through an access to information request, found 36 per cent of the children of immigrants aged 25 to 35 held university degrees, compared to 24 per cent of their peers with Canadian-born parents.

Also:

54.2 per cent of new immigrants in the prime working age between 35 and 44 had at least a bachelor’s degree in the cohorts arriving between 2011 and 2016, up from 30.5 per cent in the 1990s. By comparison, only 27.9 per cent of non-immigrants have the same level of education.

While 46.5 per cent of visible-minority women and 45 per cent of their male counterparts in this age group in Canada are university degree-holders, only 33.8 per cent of white Canadian women and less than a quarter of white Canadian men have at least a bachelor’s degree.

“Long gone are the days when someone can say those immigrants lack education. Though first-generation visible minority immigrants don’t do as well as first-generation white immigrants, their children are doing much better.”

Source

 

Edited by marcus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

Need some cites on this.  Also why didn't you figure mortality into it ?   Where did you get that the average senior coming to Canada lives 16 to 20 years ?  That's a minimum of 81 years ?

Well, the health care cost related to seniors ($12K annually, on average) is quite easy to access, if you're looking for the number. The CMA has cited it relating to expressing its concerns about the need for increasing demand for senior health care services in this country. (Although you could easily have found this yourself, see citation below.)

As for the all-in costs related to immigrants seniors, the math is fairly simple to do. There is some conjecture that seniors who enter Canada may be unhealthier than are native-born Canadian seniors but even if their longevity is lower than that of Canadians, a good percentage of whom now live into their mid-80s, the per capita costs associated with immigrant seniors would presumably be higher than the Canadian average. Anyway, you can do the math. I believe the $4B annual figure is generally accepted by most analysts. The Fraser Institute has estimated that the cumulative cost to Canadian taxpayers for each immigrant senior amounts to roughly $300K (in 2013 dollars), so each additional 20,000 cohort entails an unfunded liability of almost $6 billion dollars. As our already overburdened health care system continues to deteriorate and the population continues to age, can we afford this additional substantial stress on our system? I realize senior immigration is a LIb vote buying scheme, but in my view we should be very wary about it given its implications.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/physicians-urge-ottawa-to-pay-another-21b-over-decade-for-seniors-health-care-1.4016130

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/canadian-family-class-immigration

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Tell a friend

    Love Repolitics.com - Political Discussion Forums? Tell a friend!
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      10,712
    • Most Online
      1,403

    Newest Member
    nyralucas
    Joined
  • Recent Achievements

    • Jeary earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Venandi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Gaétan earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • Dictatords earned a badge
      First Post
    • babetteteets earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...