the principles of universality, inter-provincial portability and comprehensiveness should all be retained in their current form

Some sections of the Canada Health Act do, however, need to be revised

Section 8, which contains the requirement for public administration, requires a single, non-profit insurer, thus preventing competition and alternate forms of ownership and operation of the insurer

Section 12 covers accessibility and is one of the more problematic sections

It is also intimately related to sections 18 through 21. These sections disallow the use of extra billing and user charges. We recommend repealing these prohibitions

We also recommend that Section 12 focus on accessibility for those experiencing low income by encouraging the provinces to shelter such people from the burden of user fees, co-pays, or other financial contributions.

The federal government has taken some productive first steps in reforming the transfer payments and accordant conditions attached to them. However, the federal government must now revise the Canada Health Act

Jason Clemens and Nadeem Esmail are co-authors of First, Do No Harm: How the Canada Health Act Obstructs Reform and Innovation, which was recently released by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

The authors recommend that governments adopt a universal public insurance plan that provides full coverage based on a standard evaluation of care needs. This would reduce uncertainty for aging Canadians and be more equitable. It would also be more consistent with “aging at home” approach

The justices in Washington are expected to deliver their ruling in the next 10 days, a decision that could have a serious impact on Obama's re-election hopes as well as the healthcare of the millions of Americans who currently have inadequate coverage or none at all.

moves that are under way everywhere to improve the co-ordination and quality of care as the Act requires, he says. Doctors and hospitals are exploring different relationships. Accountable care organisations (ACOs) are springing up to provide the entire network of care many people need – specialist, primary care doctor and home health care as well, instead of just the separate parts

"Medicaid is more vulnerable than Medicare because it serves a less vocal population and it's a state/federal partnership

Medicare is so big and so important that you really can't get the whole system to move without Medicare's involvement, but Medicare can lead or it can follow.

Berwick's downfall was considered to be his praise for Britain's universal national health service

He warns that increasing the role of the private sector in the NHS, as the British government is now doing, is risky. "I would be cautious – very cautious," he said. "When you invite entrepreneurial private sector investors into the delivery of care, under most payment systems, they will be very interested in volume. They will be very interested in doing more things to people and you may find that you lose control of that level of discipline to the disadvantage of patients. When more things are done, more unnecessary things get done and more hazard enters the system – not just cost.

"You want hospitals that seek to be empty, doctors that seek to be idle, machines that are few. In healthcare you want to find the way to help that is the least invasive of the person's life and body. A volume-based system does not have that incentive structure."

"Unlike the past several years, the 2012 results show a worsening of performance

the alliance sees a strong role for the federal government to play in setting national strategies and facilitating their implementation, as was done in the past for heart disease

Some provinces are slipping backwards, the alliance said, because so many hospital beds are filled with elderly patients with dementia.

The group called for a national strategy to deal with illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease and to factor dementia into the management of other chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

When seniors do go to hospital, they should be screened for delirium and dementia as early as possible to trigger services such as geriatric medicine and psychiatry while they're still waiting for a hospital bed

One solution is building up frontline community care

The findings are consistent with a report in March from the Canadian Institute for Health Information that said wait times are about the same as in 2009 with some provinces struggling more than others.

In separate reforms to the refugee system, however, the government is introducing the controversial category of "designated countries of origin" countries (DCOs) deemed to be safe for a returning refugee.

"Urgent and essential" care will be restricted to government-assisted refugees (those who are identified in refugee camps by the government and brought to Canada) and some refugee claimants (those who ask for asylum at the border).

Paying for a private insurance plan would be difficult for most refugees; they usually have little to no income, and DCO claimants will not be al-lowed to work legally in Canada for the first 180 days.

The changes to the IFHP eliminate vision, dental, and prescription medication benefits for all refugees.

refugees will be among the two per cent who have to pay for all medicines themselves

Type 2 diabetes is more prevalent among newcomers than among the general Canadian population, and is managed with medications that can cost upward of $40 a month - a considerable expense for someone living on social assistance, as many refugees do for their first months here. Refugee claimants in the provinces with the biggest refugee populations - Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec - can't ac-cess provincial drug plans for low-income earners because they are not yet permanent residents.

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

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

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

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.”

Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, said the government promised that each home would be given an in-depth inspection each year. But now, Meadus said, the ministry says the new nursing home act only requires that a home has “an inspection” of any kind (mostly generated by an individual complaint) as long as it is done annually. “That means we are leaving it up to the homes to regulate themselves,” Meadus said. “If there are bad apples out there, they will be allowed to continue unchecked.”

One of Mr. Wellner’s first jobs is to develop an expansion plan to add some growth to the company’s profile.

We have the capability to provide high-quality MRI services but, based on our licence restrictions, we are not able to service all the patients we get. We get lots of patients who say that they would gladly pay additional fees if they would not have to wait 100 or more days for an MRI, or to go to a less-convenient location. We could provide that, if we had some loosening of the restrictions.

We could go into a jurisdiction that has a single-payer market [where we could] deliver services very similarly to how we deliver them in Ontario. There are three or four countries that have that type of model in Europe. There are a couple in Asia that fit. Even places such as the United Arab Emirates and also potentially India.

In December 2009, the health superboard launched a centralized menu program with a rotating 21-day meal plan at the centres.

In September, 2010, then-premier Ed Stelmach vowed to review food services at the rural and acute-care facilities.

There was no fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables.

Scrambled eggs poured from a container, watery mashed potatoes and unrecognizable chicken heated from a package

The union's film, "Tough to swallow: Meals that sparked a seniors revolt," follows Claresholm residents who fought for two years for AHS to restore full-service kitchens.

Brett J. Skinner is founder and CEO of the Canadian Health Policy Institute and author of "How to Grow the Economy by Liberating Healthcare" (forthcoming).

Canadians spent almost $200-billion on health care in 2010, equal to about 12% of GDP

The health-care industry is also a job-creation machine.

current market demand for health care exceeds the current market supply

economic growth in the industry, is artificially constrained by limited government resources and policy barriers to private-sector funding and delivery

The hospital would have to get approval under Ontario's Public Hospitals Act to operate those beds at the retirement home

it is the first time a hospital in the region - or maybe even the province - tries this

to open up some extra beds in an existing space in the community while Windsor waits for its new 256-bed long-term care facility to be built

The hospital would rent the wing from the retirement home as a tenant.

A coroner's inquest in 2006 into the deaths of residents at Casa Verde - a long-term care home - recommended increased staffing in specialized facilities and units caring for demented and cognitively impaired and aggressive individuals in order to prevent violent incidents.