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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Irene Jansen

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Irene Jansen

Long-term-care insurance plans call for some women to pay more than men - The Washingto... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_story.html

US LTC insurance Affordable Care Act women discrimination

shared by Irene Jansen on 27 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Starting next year, the Affordable Care Act will largely prohibit insurers who sell individual and small-group health policies from charging women higher premiums than men for the same coverage.
  • Long-term-care insurance, however, isn’t bound by that law, and the country’s largest provider of such coverage has announced it will begin setting its prices based on sex this spring.
  • Women’s premiums may increase by 20 to 40 percent under the new pricing policy
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Consumer health advocates say they aren’t surprised that women’s claims for long-term-care insurance are higher than men’s.Because women typically live longer than men, they frequently act as caregivers when their husbands need long-term care, advocates say, thus reducing the need for nursing help that insurance might otherwise pay for. Once a woman needs care, however, there may be no one left to provide it.
  • “The Affordable Care Act recognized the gender bias in health insurance,” she said. “The same [rules] should apply to long-term-care insurance.”
  • A 2012 study by the National Women’s Law Center found that 92 percent of top-selling health plans in the individual market practiced sex-based pricing in states where the practice was allowed. (Fourteen states banned or limited the practice, according to the report.) Nearly a third of plans charged women at least 30 percent more than men for the same coverage, even plans that did not include maternity benefits, the study found.
  • Insurers that sell individual and small-group health policies on the state-based health insurance exchanges or outside them on the private market in 2014 will be able to vary premiums based only on geography, family size, age and tobacco use. (Plans that have grandfathered status under the law are exempt from these requirements.)
  • Under federal laws against sex discrimination in the workplace, employers are generally prohibited from charging women more than men for the same health insurance coverage.
Irene Jansen

Canadians close their eyes to the staggering cost of elder care: Goar | Toronto Star - 0 views

www.thestar.com/...g_cost_of_elder_care_goar.html

LTC

shared by Irene Jansen on 27 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • the topic — Paying for Elder Care
  • David Baker, assistant vice-president of Sun Life Financial. He made the case for private long-term care insurance.
  • Michel Grignon, director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy at McMaster University. He made the case for a universal public insurance plan to cover long-term care.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • the price tag — an estimated $1.2 trillion over the next 35 years
  • backed up by a 27-page study
  • The final speaker was Michael Decter
  • The challenge is not insurmountable, he assured the audience. Germany has done it. Several other nations — Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and Luxembourg — are following the same path. But it will require a mix of public and private funding.
  • What all three speakers agreed on was that it is critical to get Canadians thinking and talking about this issue. The existing elder care system is breaking under the strain — the waiting list for a spot in a nursing home is approximately 20,000 in Ontario alone — and the baby boom hasn’t even hit its heavy-need years. Home care is severely underfunded. And hospitals, the most expensive option, can’t accommodate an influx of frail, elderly patients.
Irene Jansen

Ontario Health Coalition Austerity Index details Hospital cuts and Privatization - 1 views

www.web.net/index.html

from heather Ontario coalition hospital cuts privatization

shared by Irene Jansen on 27 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The coalition released a new report, the OHC Austerity Index: Health Care Cuts and Deficits Across Ontario listing hospital deficits and service cuts across the province and a list of upcoming March 4 Day of Action events.
Irene Jansen

Laundry closure in nursing homes: another blow to rural New Brunswick < Homes for the a... - 0 views

cupe.ca/...dry-closure-nursing-homes-blow

NB laundry cuts

shared by Irene Jansen on 27 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The government’s decision to close laundry facilities in 16 nursing homes in the province is another blow to rural communities
  • at least 60 employees will be affected
  • “For years, the government has been telling us that it could not interfere with the nursing homes’ administration; that they were at arm-length. Suddenly, the government can decide by the stroke of a pen to eliminate 16 laundry facilities.”
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • millions could be saved in making nursing homes a public service; by regionalizing the administration of the homes, centralizing payroll, purchasing pharmaceutical supplies provincially and doing the same for insurance.”
Irene Jansen

Quality of elderly care questioned - Winnipeg Free Press - 0 views

www.winnipegfreepress.com/...care-questioned-191417161.html

Manitoba inquiry hospital occupancy seniors safety

shared by Irene Jansen on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • TWO Winnipeg families hope a judicial inquest called this week into last year’s death of Heather Brenan looks deeper into the quality of care of elderly patients at the city’s hospitals.
  • Chief medical examiner Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra called the inquest into Brenan’s death on Tuesday partly to examine whether a lack of acutecare beds contributed to Brenan’s being sent home prematurely.
Irene Jansen

MUHC support staff protest $50-million in planned cuts - 0 views

www.montrealgazette.com/...story.html

Quebec hospital cuts cleaners hai

shared by Irene Jansen on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • the McGill University Health Centre is eliminating a special housekeeping squad devoted to eradicating C. difficile and other potentially deadly pathogens from patient rooms.
  • The MUHC set up the 10-person squad following the epidemic of Clostridium difficile-associated infections at the Montreal General Hospital in 2003-2004. More than 1,200 Quebecers died after contracting C. difficile diarrhea across the province during that epidemic
Irene Jansen

Music therapy programs opening new worlds for patients - The Globe and Mail - 1 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article9044466

vision continuing care

shared by Irene Jansen on 26 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • “What we realize is that children when they’re unable to do anything else – maybe they can’t move, maybe they can’t see, and even kids who can’t hear well, you can get to them through rhythm. If they’re no longer able to participate in life in other usual meaningful ways, the music can still reach them and help them to express who they are and represent themselves in our world,” Roberts says.
  • Canada’s roughly 550 accredited music therapists treat clients of all ages in a variety of settings and with a wide range of conditions, among them brain injury, autism spectrum disorder, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder and dementia.
  • “Music provides a way into the soul. It provides a connection to others.”
Irene Jansen

Implementation of Affordable Care Act Provisions to Improve Nursing Home Transparency, ... - 0 views

www.kff.org/8406.cfm

us LTC regulation Affordable Care Act

shared by Irene Jansen on 25 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the first comprehensive legislation since the Nursing Home Reform Act, part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA ’87), to expand quality of care-related requirements for nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid and improve federal and state oversight and enforcement.
  • the ACA incorporates the Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act of 2009, introduced because complex ownership, management, and financing structures were inhibiting regulators’ ability to hold providers accountable for compliance with federal requirements. The ACA also incorporates the Elder Justice Act and the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act, which include provisions to protect long-term care recipients from abuse and other crimes.
  • This issue paper describes the new ACA requirements, explains the background for their inclusion in the law, and outlines the Centers for Medicare &amp; Medicaid (CMS’s) progress in implementing them to date.
Irene Jansen

Nursing home residents at risk: W5 investigation reveals startling national statistics - 2 views

www.ctvnews.ca/...-national-statistics-1.1149215

investigation ltc violence staffing extendicare

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • A ground-breaking W5 investigation into resident-on-resident abuse in long-term care homes has found that these attacks are far more common than ever thought: more than 10,000 “incidents” across Canada in one year.
  • The data was obtained after W5 filed access to information requests about resident-on-resident attacks with 38 provincial and regional health authorities. Hundreds of documents came back, detailing everything from pushing and slapping to extreme violence
  • in case after case reviewed by W5, the most that had been done was to require homes in violation of the act to submit a “plan of correction
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • whether or not the home had failed to provide that “safe environment” was not an issue for police to investigate. “That is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health. They oversee long term care homes, not the police.”
  • Statistics obtained by W5 reveal that there were more than 10,000 resident-on-resident incidents reported at long term care homes across Canada in one year.
  • Extendicare has promised to do better in the future and has drafted a voluntary plan of action
  • Staff at long term care homes and advocates for seniors believe a major contributing factor is the ratio of staff to residents. Despite claims from many homes that the average day-time ratio is one staff for every eight patients, personal care workers interviewed for this story claim that ratio is rarely met.
  • “You could be one PSW [personal support worker] on a floor of 25, and if two residents start going at it, what do you do?“ said Miranda Ferrier, President of the Ontario Personal Support Workers’ Association.
  • The reports were taken to the University of Toronto’s Institute for Life Course and Aging for analysis. “I can say in Canada we’ve never had a study on abuse in any institution, let alone on resident-to-resident,” said Lynn McDonald, the director of the Institute. “In fact, when CTV came to me I thought ‘Oh, my goodness; this is the most data I’ve ever seen on this particular issue.’
  • Theresa doesn’t blame Frank’s attacker, or the staff. She blames Extendicare and has taken her story to the street, picketing in front of Extendicare’s Lakeside Long Term Care Facility
Irene Jansen

Briefing paper - the NHS reinstatement bill | openDemocracy - 0 views

www.opendemocracy.net/...g-paper-nhs-reinstatement-bill

NHS cuts privatization ally

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The democratic and legal basis for the NHS in England was abolished by the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The impact of this fundamental change is already being felt, ahead of the shift to the new market system in April 2013.&nbsp;
  • The Act ended the Secretary of State’s duty to secure or provide health services throughout the country, a duty that had been in force since 1948.
  • This briefing explains what the government is doing and why an urgent bill to reinstate the NHS in England is required.&nbsp;
Irene Jansen

Clinique Rockland MD - La coûteuse entente avec Québec tire à sa fin | Le Devoir - 0 views

www.ledevoir.com/...ente-avec-quebec-tire-a-sa-fin

Quebec private clinics contracting in

shared by Irene Jansen on 22 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Depuis 2008, le ministère de la Santé a versé plus de 18 millions de dollars à la clinique de chirurgie Rockland MD pour opérer près de 9000 patients de l’hôpital du Sacré-Coeur. En plus, la RAMQ a dû rembourser 263 000 dollars à des patients à qui la clinique avait facturé des « forfaits santé » jugés illégaux.
  • « Je peux vous dire que cette entente a cours jusqu’en septembre et qu’elle ne sera pas renouvelée », a tranché le ministre
  • Irene Jansen on 22 Feb 13
     
    Health Edition February 21, 2013: Quebec Health Minister Dr. Réjean Hébert says he will not renew the contract with RocklandMD clinic in Montreal when it expires in September 2014. Since 2008, the clinic has had a partnership with Sacré-Coeur Hospital for the latter's surgeons to use the clinic's operating rooms to help improve wait times for certain day surgeries. It is the only fully accredited clinic to have this type of arrangement with a public hospital, and some 9,000 patients have had their procedures done at the clinic. However, a year ago Quebec public health insurer RAMQ found the clinic had been charging illegal facility fees, although the latter disagrees with the findings and is resisting attempts by RAMQ to recover $263,000 it paid out to affected patients. The matter appears headed for the courts. Dr. Hébert plans to repatriate all of the private surgeries done by the clinic within the public sector.
Irene Jansen

There are hidden costs of moving care out of hospitals. Jeremy Petch and Danielle Marti... - 4 views

healthydebate.ca/...f-moving-care-out-of-hospitals

Ontario home care substitution

shared by Irene Jansen on 21 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Providing care in the home also raises hopes of substantial cost savings for the government
  • If done well, moving care out of hospitals could improve patient care, while reducing health care spending. However, there are hidden costs, both financial and human, of moving care into the home that have received little public attention, including lower wages, riskier work environments and greater burdens on family caregivers.
  • A major source of expected savings from a shift to home care is lower wages
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • Personal support workers in the home care sector can be paid as little as $12.50/hour compared to hourly rates of $18 to $23 for their hospital-based colleagues.
  • Similar disparities have also been observed for other care workers, including registered nurses.
  • In addition, home care workers often do not get steady hours
  • According to Stella Yeadon, a representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, this is largely because union organizing is very challenging in the home care sector. Unlike the hospital environment where workers are in a single building, home care workers rarely meet one another.
  • support for family caregivers was notably absent from both Ontario’s Action Plan for Healthcare and the year-one update released last month. Support for caregivers is part of Ontario’s new Seniors Strategy, but it remains to be seen how much of this strategy will translate into action.
  • According to a report from the Ontario Health Coalition, another contributor to lower wages is the Ontario government’s procurement policy for Community Care Access Centres (CCAC), which requires CCACs to contract out home care services. While competitive bidding for contracts has been somewhat successful in keeping costs down for CCACs, it has done so largely by “driving down wages,”
  • Low wages and limited benefits across an entire sector raise concerns about the possibility of recruiting skilled care workers. “
  • low wages could pose real barriers to recruiting and retaining staff.
  • Health care workers face substantial health risks as part of their work, due to their exposure to infectious diseases, violence from patients/residents with dementia, allergic reactions from chemical agents, and injuries resulting from lifting patients.
  • There is currently limited data on the occupational health risks of delivering care in the home. However, some care may be riskier in the home, where workers are more likely to be without either backup from other staff or mechanical assistance (such as patient lifts), as compared to workers in a hospital or a long-term care facility.
  • turnover as workers leave home care for higher paying jobs at hospitals is bad for patients
  • patients who need home care do not have families to care for them
  • there’s no one to care for them but me and they need more help.”
  • lower wages and riskier environments raise the possibility that the quality of care may be negatively affected as services are moved from hospital to community settings.
Irene Jansen

the problem is not the arbitration system < Health care, Ontario | CUPE - 0 views

cupe.ca/...icipalities-themselves-problem

ontario cupe bargaining

shared by Irene Jansen on 14 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Hurley called on Premier Kathleen Wynne not to make war on health care workers to satisfy a renewed push by the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) to bias the arbitration system in favour of employers.
  • Far from being overly generous, wage settlements in the health care sector – whether freely negotiated or arbitrated – lag freely negotiated wage increases in the public and private sectors. OCHU and its 30,000 hospital sector members have freely negotiated contracts for the last four rounds of hospital central bargaining and not accessed arbitration.
  • “In the health sector both collective bargaining and arbitration are working well. Tampering with either should be avoided,” said Hurley
Irene Jansen

PQ parts ways with Council of the Federation on health care - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article8222886

Council of the Federation innovation Quebec

shared by Irene Jansen on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • the Parti Québécois has pulled out of a Council of the Federation working group on health care, arguing the other provinces were openly welcoming federal government intrusion in a provincial jurisdiction
  • In a letter last month to Prince Edward Island Premier Robert Ghiz, co-chair of the provincial-territorial Health Care Innovation Working Group, two Quebec ministers said their government disagreed with several of the initiatives undertaken in this area by the other provinces. The letter said the working group was clearly steered toward the “co-management” of certain health-care services, while welcoming Ottawa’s participation in the process.
  • The Liberals added that it will harm Quebec’s ability to create a common front with other provinces to press Ottawa for more money when the current federal-provincial health-care funding deal expires in 2014.
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