The provincial government of Alberta just had a study of Medicare completed, and intends to implement changes unilaterally. The federal government is not at all happy, as Medicare is a federal program,....
Does Alberta legally have that latitude? I might think that your feds could just with hold the checks, if Alberta doesn't have a legal standing.
Somehow, with universal coverage, I believe we must somehow induce people to be more accountable for their own well-being , at least in areas of health where illness can be reduced or avoided by lifestyle changes.....[tobacco, overweight, etc..]
No softball questions from you ... I think once you've made it past the age of ~10, you're pretty well formed pschologically. [A psychologist friend of mine says it's five.] You've got a bit of influence, if you're lucky, up to about 18. Big changes though are rare.
Society seems to be pretty good at training kids to eat fat-filled carbos and sugar. What government can do is minimal, but I'd be inclined to pull out all the sugar and fat dispensers in the schools, vending machines or what they serve in the school cafeteria along that line. You can't necessarily bar the students from bringing it in, but I don't know why we want to validate the junk food by serving it in the schools. Kill the candy bar sales drives and the Girl Scout cookies from the school.
Despite the history of school cafeterias, it is possible to serve, good tasting, nutritional, inexpensive food.
I'd like to see PTAs get active in not supporting fat food factories like McDonalds and KFC. We seem to spend, as parents, a lot of [unintended] energy teaching our children exactly what to eat so they will be fat when they become adults. I pick the PTA rather than the schools, because I think peer pressure works better than government pressure.
I've heard frequently that people that have a lower fat diet, will generally feel ill after eating in McDonalds. That's good <s>.
Though you've probably heard of the "French paradox". High fat diet and relatively low rate of heart disease. Attributed to more exercise and a glass of red wine. Doctors don't like to mention the red wine very much due to the substance abuse problem. I can't blame them.
The Japanese did find it beneficial to productivity in the work place to have some exercise [I haven't followed that]. What's the state of exercise in American and Canadian schools? Add 15 minutes to the school day and shove in a bit of exercise; justification is to improve productivity if you need something beyond giving children exercise.
Tobacco. If we can ban illicit drugs, I don't see any reason why we can't make tobacco illegal. But that's a long term solution, i.e., you're not going to make tobacco illegal in the next five years. How's Canada doing with the rate of new smokers?
Some health companies have figured out that periodic physicals help diagnose problems earlier and in the long run they estimate a cost savings by having members get physicals. Other companies have decided they can't measure future benefits, so they save money by not providing physicals.
Does Canada have a mixed private and public health care system? If so, how are the services different.
You mentioned in an earlier post that there was a brain drain on doctors in Canada [relocating to the US]. I would be remiss if I didn't ask...is that conventional wisdom or is there hard data that the doctors per capita is decreasing?
Regards,
jttmab |
