CANADA Health care Crisis

[HONDO74]

Canada: Premiers demand to meet Trudeau over health crisis
By Nadine Yousif
BBC News, Toronto

The leaders of Canada's provinces have urged PM Justin Trudeau to meet them over the nation's healthcare crisis.

Canada's hospitals have faced significant strain, with reports of patients dying while waiting for care.

Mr Trudeau has previously said he is willing to provide more funding, but with strings attached.

Medical treatment in Canada is publicly funded, with private non-profits owning hospitals and employing doctors, but government picking up the tab.

While the county's universal healthcare system uses a mix of federal and provincial money, it is administered provincially.

In a joint press conference on Friday, all 13 of Canada's premiers publicly asked Mr Trudeau to meet them early in the new year.

They renewed their request to raise the federal share of healthcare spending in Canada from 22% to 35%, accusing the Trudeau government of not paying its fair share.

"The number one issue in this entire country from coast to coast to coast is healthcare, and we can't do it alone," said Ontario's premier Doug Ford.

Hospitals across Canada have faced significant pressure this year due to staffing shortages and a rise in the number of sick people requiring care. In smaller communities, the shortages have forced some emergency departments to temporarily close their doors to patients.
A surge in viral infections among children has put a strain on paediatric hospitals in recent months.

In the province of New Brunswick, protests sprang up after a man in his 70s died in an emergency department's waiting room on Wednesday.

In a September poll, 51% of Canadians said they don't feel confident they would receive timely care in a medical emergency.

Provincial health ministers met their federal counterpart as recently as November in Vancouver to pin down a deal on healthcare funding, but those talks collapsed.

Premiers have since accused Mr Trudeau of ignoring the issue and communicating with them via the media.

[HONDO74]

Canada and the UK have basically the same health care system so I put this here

Rishi Sunak refuses to say if he uses private GP
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64202855

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly refused to say whether he uses private healthcare, insisting it is "not really relevant".

Mr Sunak told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that his healthcare was "a personal choice".

Nursing union leader Pat Cullen said the PM "needed to come clean as a public servant".

And when asked the same question, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said he did not use private healthcare.

In the interview, Laura Kuenssberg suggested there was huge public interest in Mr Sunak's decisions and that former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher was open about her choice to use a private GP.

Mr Sunak said healthcare was "something that is private", adding he "grew up in an NHS family", with a dad who was GP, and a mum who was a pharmacist.

But when pressed again, Mr Sunak did not answer the question and instead said, in general, "we should be making use of the independent sector" so patients could choose where they have treatment.

A newspaper report in November last year suggested Mr Sunak was registered with a private GP practice that offers on-the-day appointments and charges £250 for a half-hour consultation.

The latest NHS figures show that, in November last year, 58% of NHS patients were not seen on the day they made an appointment.

At the same time, a record high of more than seven million people are waiting for hospital treatment, as the NHS faces one of the worst winters in its history.

Ms Cullen, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said public servants "ought to be clear with the public whether or not you are using private health cover".

"That's about being open, it's about being transparent and it's about honesty," she said.

Mr Streeting said the PM's answer to the question about his healthcare showed him to be someone who did not understand the biggest crisis in NHS history.

He said private healthcare created a two-tier system, but patients were free to make their own choices about treatment.

[healey36]

As of 0700 yesterday, only seven beds available at our local hospital. The almost certainly understated reported Covid infection rate here is back into double-digits.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

As of 0700 yesterday, only seven beds available at our local hospital. The almost certainly understated reported Covid infection rate here is back into double-digits.

Been waiting for it. Some of these newer variants escape around immunization.

[Neil]

The National Health Service has suffered through decades of neglect under Tory governments, starting with that great fool Margaret Thatcher. In general, Tory governments have been unwilling to invest in the NHS and other public services, believing the lie that private enterprise is better at running all services, including the trains, the NHS, etc. So you have the spectacle of rich Russian and other foreign capitalists driving the cost of housing up in London (and to some extent the rest of the UK) while being hardly taxed. The fear of taxing the rich, because they will move to Wyoming, Dubai or Mars and the lust to protect the rich from contributing their fair share of the costs of a free society have been the cancer of conservative governments throughout the English speaking world.

There is of course, a general lack of staffing for all professions (except tax lawyers, perhaps that is a demographic and pandemic induced problem everywhere. We are certainly short handed and under-bedded here in Rochester, but because we have very few uninsured between Medicare, Medicaid and Obama-care, we are not in the same dire straits as many urban hospitals. So the problems are complex and not easily fixed by simple solutions. But when the government is resolutely against fixing road or health care because we might have to actually tax rich people , you have roads full of potholes and hospitals with patients who should be in the ICU being treated in the emergency department or not at all.

[HONDO74]

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has released data on individual income taxes for tax year 2019, showing the number of taxpayers, adjusted gross income, income tax paid, and income tax shares by income percentiles.[1] The new data outlines the tax system under the second year of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the last year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data demonstrates the U.S. individual income tax continues to be progressive, borne primarily by the highest income earners.
Key Findings

In 2019, taxpayers filed 148.3 million tax returns, reported earning nearly $11.9 trillion in adjusted gross income, and paid $1.6 trillion in individual income taxes.
The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 25.6 percent average individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.5 percent).
The share of reported income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers fell to 20.1 percent from 20.9 percent in 2018. The top 1 percent’s share of federal individual income taxes paid fell to 38.8 percent from 40.1 percent.

The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.

The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.8 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.2 percent).
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act reduced average tax rates across income groups.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So the problems are complex and not easily fixed by simple solutions.

Sadly that does not translate to the simpletons having the answers.

[robert.]

So the problems are complex and not easily fixed by simple solutions.

Sadly that does not translate to the simpletons having the answers.

It's a hard subject. 148 million returns filed. 1.6 trillion dollars collected. More than $11,000 per return if you do cheap math. In the end. I did not pay the IRS that much.
Some folks say " end the income tax and use a flat tax" That might net the IRS more. But and this is a big but. The average worker would lose money. Most would have a hard time getting their employer to pay them what their employer paid into taxes.
At this point in my life. I don't believe any of these number mean sheet. We print money like it's toilet paper and spend it like a drunken sailor.

[HONDO74]

and spend it like a drunken sailor.

A Drunken sailor Can't print money so when he runs out of money he stops spending. But not Our government they just keep printing and spending. That's why we are 31 trillion in debt.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So the problems are complex and not easily fixed by simple solutions.

Sadly that does not translate to the simpletons having the answers.

It's a hard subject. 148 million returns filed. 1.6 trillion dollars collected. More than $11,000 per return if you do cheap math. In the end. I did not pay the IRS that much.

Wish I could pay that little.....

[E7]

Wish I could pay that little.....

We're counting on you to erase the deficit.

[HONDO74]

New York City sees 7,000 nurses on strike at Mount Sinai, Montefiore hospitals after bargaining fails
Mount Sinai Hospital rips nursing union for 'reckless behavior'

More than 7,000 nurses are on strike Monday morning across the Big Apple – down from the initial 10,000 planning to walk out three days ago – hours after union representatives at two major hospitals walked away from the bargaining table despite Gov. Kathy Hochul’s calls for arbitration.

The New York State Nurses Association, representing more than 40,000 workers statewide, said more than 7,000 nurses at two hospitals in New York City are on strike "for fair contracts that improve patient care."

The union said after bargaining late into the night at Montefiore and Mount Sinai Hospital Sunday, no tentative agreements were reached.

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday, picketing lines are planned at four locations -- Montefiore Moses, Montefiore Weiler, Montefiore Hutch, all in the Bronx, as well as at Mount Sinai Hospital, located in east Harlem in the borough of Manhattan.

NEW YORK CITY PREPS FOR 8,700 NURSES TO GO ON STRIKE, IMPACTING EMERGENCY TRIAGES AT 3 MAJOR HOSPITALS

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Canada pledges billions to help fix healthcare system
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64574072

The Canadian government has pledged nearly CAD $200bn ($149bn; £124bn) in funding over 10 years to aid the country's ailing healthcare system.

The funding was pitched as a generational fix for the system in an announcement on Tuesday.

For months, Canada's hospitals have grappled with a lack of staff and lengthy wait times for care.

A few reports have since emerged of patients dying while awaiting treatment.

Canada's healthcare system is funded by the taxpayer to offer free, universal access to necessary hospital and doctor visits for all citizens and permanent residents.

It is paid for using a mix of federal and provincial money, but administered at the local level. Around 25% of funding is from the federal government through the Canada Health Transfer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the funding pitch to Canada's provincial premiers, who have repeatedly pushed Mr Trudeau to increase federal spending on healthcare.

Mr Trudeau, however, had said he would not increase funding without strings attached.

Following a meeting with the premiers on Tuesday, Mr Trudeau said that his government is "taking action today so Canadians can continue to have trust in our public system."

"This is a big country, built on big progressive ideas," he said. "Few are more central to who we are as Canadians than the promise of universal, publicly funded healthcare."

His proposal includes a total of $196.1bn to be spent on healthcare over the course of a decade - $46.2bn of which is new money on top of what has already been budgeted.

The total amounts to around a 61% increase in the Canada Health Transfer to provinces over the next 10 years.

It is less than what Canada's premiers wanted - they had asked Mr Trudeau for an annual top-up of $28bn.

Manitoba's premier, Heather Stefanson, said she was "disappointed" with the amount, meanwhile Ontario's premier, Doug Ford, called it a "starting point".

The premiers said they are now in the process of assessing the proposal.

Mr Trudeau said the money his government has put up is a "major investment in healthcare", but he added that money alone will not fix the country's faltering system.