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16.8 percent of children are uninsured

Doctors recount horror stories of uninsured patients who die of treatable diseases because families delay seeking medical help or must endure long waits for appointments with specialists.

women still only make 70% of what men make

compared to other countries, Canada is underperforming

Women make up 41% of the NDP caucus

Canada needs proactive pay equity legislation that would force all employers to ensure that all employees are getting equal pay for work of equal value.

"Could be that it's complicated for low-income Canadians to take time off work or to find child care to see a physician?"

The rise of medical tourism to glittering hospitals in places like Singapore and Thailand has turned coddling and elegance into marketing necessities

The spotlight on luxury accommodations comes at an awkward time for many urban hospitals, now lobbying against cuts in Washington and highlighting their role as nonprofit teaching institutions that serve the poor.

In space-starved New York, many regular hospital rooms are still double-occupancy

“We pride ourselves on getting anything the patient wants. If they have a craving for lobster tails and we don’t have them on the menu, we’ll go out and get them.”

30 percent of its clientele comes from abroad

“I’m perfectly at home here — totally private, totally catered,” she added. “I have a primary-care physician who also acts as ringmaster for all my other doctors. And I see no people in training — only the best of the best.”

Increasingly, hospitals serving the merely well-off are joining the amenities race.

The conflicts echo those of a century ago, in another era of growing income inequality and financial crisis, said David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University. Hospitals, founded as free, charitable institutions to rehabilitate the poor, began seeking paying patients for the first time in the 1890s, he said, restyling themselves in part as “hotels for rich invalids.”

“Every generation of hospitals reflects our attitude about health and disease and wealth and poverty,” Professor Rosner said. “Today, they pride themselves on attracting private patients, and on the other hand ask for our tax dollars based upon their older charitable mission. There’s a conflict there at times.”

union president Thérèse Duguay

Stultz eventually sat down with Duguay and a few other union representatives

the union and the Canadian Red Cross are currently in contract negotiations

The workers say that their contract, signed with the Canadian Red Cross and the department, is not being respected. Duguay says that there's a discrepancy within the transportation allowance. She says that they are only receiving 12 cents an hour for mileage and are asking the department to conduct an audit of the books of the Red Cross on such an allowance.

the Red Cross has not met a requirement of contracts with the Department of Social Development to give workers 75 per cent of transportation allowance money received from the department - the other 25 per cent covers program administration

base rate of $0.12 per hour but also $0.27 per kilometre

the reason for the split travel allowance is because it's not necessarily mileage travelled in a car and part of the care workers' job is to accompany the client to and from medical appointments and related events

the union has been in negotiations with its employer for better wages for almost 30 months

"When you compare this with people doing the same work in other provinces, the difference in wages is huge," she said. "For example, in 2008, in Nova Scotia, they received $15.62 an hour and in P.E.I., $19.19."

the NB Coalition for Pay Equity was supporting Duguay and the workers

Wealthy patients went to hospitals chiefly for surgery and outpatient procedures. Poor patients used them for basic medical care, mental health services, chronic care, emergencies and end-of-life care.

Glazier draws two lessons from Hospital Care for All. The first is that “very low-income people are using the parts of the health-care system that are in greatest crisis.” The second is that to reduce hospital use “people need the ability to pay for healthy foods, buy medicine and live in a healthy place where they can receive home care.”

Only 8.3 per cent of patients from cities were readmitted, compared to 9.5 of rural residents.

a shortage of home-care services like palliative care and physiotherapy outside major centres could be to blame

nearly one in 10 of those discharged from a hospital end up in an ER within a week.

Legal precedent: Whatever way the case is decided at trial, it is likely to be appealed and eventually reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada. A decision from this level will mean all provincial and territorial governments will have to revisit equivalent laws. The foundational pillars of Canadian medicare - equitable access and preventing twotier care - could well be vanquished in the process. Wait times: Day will likely argue that Canada performs poorly on wait times compared to other countries, and that other countries allow two-tier care; thus, if Canada is allowed two-tier care, our wait times would improve. But this approach is too simplistic. Comparisons to the British health system, fail to recall that, despite having two-tiers, it has in the past suffered horrendously long-wait times. Recent efforts to tackle wait times have come from within the public system, with initiatives like wait time guarantees and tying payment for public officials to wait times targets.

By looking to Britain, we are comparing apples to oranges. British doctors are generally full-time salaried employees while most Canadian physicians bill medicare on a fee-forservice basis. Consequently, the repercussions of permitting extra billing in Canada could eviscerate our publiclyfunded system, whereas this is not the case in Britain. Imagine if most doctors in Canada could bill, as those at the Cambie clinic have done, whatever they want in addition to what they are paid by governments?

Conflict-of-interest incentives: Evidence suggests there is a danger in providing a perverse incentive for physicians who are permitted to work in both public and private health systems at the same time. Wait times may grow for patients left in the public system as specialists drive traffic to their more lucrative private practice. Sound improbable? Academic studies have noted this trend in specific clinics that permit simultaneous private-public practice. And recent U.K. news reports have profiled a case where a surgeon bumped a public patient in need of a transplant for his private-pay patient.

Competition: Proponents of privatized health services often claim it would add a healthy dose of competition, jolting the "monopoly" of public health care from its apathy. But free markets don't work well in health care. Why? Because public providers and private providers won't truly compete if the laws Day challenges are struck down. Instead, those with means and/or private insurance will buy their way to the front of queues. Public coverage for the poor will likely suffer, as is clearly evident in the U.S., with doctors refusing to provide care to low-income patients in preference for those covered by higher-paying private insurance.

Of course, this is all based on an outcome that is not yet known. It may be that the charter challenge in B.C. will be unsuccessful, but clearly the stakes for ordinary Canadians are high. Sadly Dr. Day is not bringing a challenge for all Canadians. Isn't it past time our governments and doctors work to ensure all Canadians - and not just those who can afford to pay - receive timely care? Colleen Flood is Professor and University Research Chair in Health Law Policy at the University of Ottawa. Kathleen O'Grady is a Research Associate at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, Concordia University and Managing Editor of EvidenceNetwork. ca

As a result, the tax on the highest income bracket was reduced to 16.5 per cent. By 2010, the top income bracket was reduced further to 13.3 per cent. From 2007 to today the government brags that we have the lowest income tax rates in Atlantic Canada.

Clearly the beneficiaries of the boom times were high-income earners. With only three tax brackets, if you made $700,000 you were taxed at the same rate as those middle-class individuals earning $70,000.

That means more than just finding new places for seniors to live: ¦¦ In Calgary, the tight job market driven by the oil boom has pushed the city to look for ways to keep more seniors employed, by retaining retired workers on short-term projects. And the share of those 65 and over is projected to double by 2042, so the city is also trying to rein in sprawl and increase the availability of transit, with an eye to making it easier for the elderly to reach social services. Cologne, Germany, started a program that lets students move in with seniors for free, in return for acting as caregivers. In Helsinki, an emphasis on keeping people in their homes for as long as possible, combined with an expected shortage of trained home-care staff, led to the development of floor-sensor systems that let nurses monitor seniors remotely. The OECD report shows that most developed cities face a variation of the same basic challenges: increasing the supply of affordable and accessible housing, making it easier for the elderly to get around safely and stay active, and finding ways to provide social services and other care for less money.