Sweeping changes are being proposed as Canadians examine our health care system. But what are the legal implications of health care reform? In this timely collection, lawyers and legal scholars discuss a variety of topics in health care reform, including regulation of private care, interpretation of the Canada Health Act, and the constitutional implications of proposed reforms. Barbara von Tigerstrom is currently studying at the University of Cambridge in England. Timothy Caulfield lives in Edmonton, where he teaches at the University of Alberta.
This comparison of the American health care system with that of five other countries offers a valuable learning experience from which to model our own system. Health of Nations examines the relationships between the political, economic, and cultural influences that shaped each system and discusses how certain aspects of foreign systems might conform more easily than others to U.S. political, economic, and cultural realities. Graig scrutinizes the organization, financing, and implementation of health care systems in the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.
Introduction -- Key trade treaty rules and health safeguards -- Examing recent reports on health care reform -- Hazardous mixture : trade treaties and helath care reform proposals -- Towards healthy health care reform.
Why has health care reform proved a stumbling block for provincial governments across Canada? What efforts have been made to improve a struggling system, and how have they succeeded or failed? In Paradigm Freeze, experts in the field answer these fundamental questions by examining and comparing six essential policy issues - regionalization, needs-based funding, alternative payment plans, privatization, waiting lists, and prescription drug coverage - in five provinces. Noting hundreds of recommendations from dozens of reports commissioned by provincial governments over the last quarter century - the great majority to little or no avail - the book focuses on careful diagnosis, rather than unplanned treatment, of the problem. Paradigm Freeze is based on thirty case studies of policy reform in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The contributors assess the nature and extent of healthcare reform in Canada since the beginning of the 1990s. They account for the generally limited extent of reform that has occurred, and identify the factors associated with the relatively few cases of large reform. An insightful new perspective on a problem that has plagued Canadian governments for decades, Paradigm Freeze is an important addition to the field of health policy. Contributors include John Church (University of Alberta), Michael Ducie (Alberta Health and Wellness), Pierre-Gerlier Forest (Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation), Stephen Tomblin (Memorial University), Jeff Braun Jackson (Ontario Professional Firefighters Association, Burlington, ON), Marie-Pascale Pomey (Université de Montréal), John N. Lavis (McMaster University), Harvey Lazar (Queen's University), Elisabeth Martin (Université Laval),Tom McIntosh (University of Regina), Dianna Pasic (McMaster University), Neale Smith (University of British Columbia), and Michael G. Wilson (McMaster University).
