New Health deal is only a patch
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For the Edmonton Sun. Okay, the good news is that the federal government and the provinces reached an agreement on health-care funding.
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Senate and House negotiators from both parties reached a final deal yesterday on an expansion of a health insurance program for the children of the working poor, just a day after President Bush vowed to veto it.
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I hope the Republicans come prepared to debate health care this year, and they leave the platitudes and slogans home.  Enough of us have been seriously sick, or know someone who has, or have family members who have been or are now. The way the Republicans describe health care, it's as if they've never been through it or don't know anyone who has. I got some pushback, not much, from a casual mention of universal health care a few days ago. Some think the problem can be solved through the "private sector" but that's nonsense. There is no such thing in health care. It's not a free market, as anyone who's been through it can tell you. There's nothing free about it. (Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.) When you check into a hospital you turn over your whole being to the health care system. I can't imagine anything changing that, nor do I think it should. When you're dangerously ill, decisions must be made about you. To people who have never relinquished control, it's a big trip, because that's what you have to do. You spend huge amounts of time waiting. You can't sleep because hospitals are 24-by-7. You're much more likely to get an infection in a hospital, and infection on top of other disease can kill. Even so, people are treated and some even are cured by the system. Lives are definitely prolonged, pain is eased.  Whether we have universal health care or not, it won't change the basics of how health care works, and how unfair it is to be sick and fighting for your life. But there are some things we can change, and if you have a heart, and think about it, I don't see how anyone could be against universal health care and still sleep at night. One commenter said that no one is ever turned away from an emergency room, as if that's all there was to health care.  First, emergency rooms do turn people away, and some of them die. But most disease is not treated in emergency rooms. If you need drugs to treat cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, AIDS, heart disease, depression, arthritis, emphysema, to name a few common chronic diseases -- you're out of luck if you don't have insurance. You could die years before you would with treatment, or might suffer, where if you had good insurance, you wouldn't.  I'm lucky I have good health insurance. It's lucky that I lived in Massachusetts when my COBRA policy expired, it's the one state in the US that has liberalized health insurance. I'm lucky that I can afford the monthly payments. I'm lucky. But why should getting the care and treatment you need depend on luck? We can do so much better. And I think our country would do better with a healthy population that knows if they, or someone they love, got sick they'll the help they need. It'll be interesting to see if we can get McCain to talk about this, if he turns out to be the Republcan nominee. The Republicans have never been responslble about this issue. It's of huge importance to Americans, and McCain presents himself as an honest person. He must understand how the health care system actually works. He's been through it himself, probably many times.  BTW, Hillary's passion for computerizing medical records is a good thing. She's right, a lot of money could be saved, the system could be made much more efficient, people would get better treatment, and lives would be saved. The sooner we get busy doing this, the better it will be for all of us.
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Democratic presidential contender  Hillary Clinton, whose first attempt at a health care overhaul  fell flat 13 years ago, unveiled a broad proposal on Monday to  require health insurance for all Americans and make it more  affordable.
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We have seen what a Republican administration has done with health insurance in the commonwealth. They have managed to take a reasonably good plan and replace it with a terribly poor plan for their own employees.
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Description: One of the few new ideas in health care this year is a piece of John Kerry&#39;s health plan that would have the federal government take over the costs of patients with &quot;catastrophic&quot; illnesses.
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Ending months of deadlock with the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final bipartisan approval to legislation that would temporarily extend the state health insurance program that covers about 6.6 million poor children.
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OTTAWA -- A scheduled three-day first ministers conference next month designed to reform the health system should continue &quot;as long as it takes&quot; to get a deal, Prime Minister Paul Martin said yesterday, even as one of the key premiers said he will limit
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For the next four weeks, federal employees and retirees will select their health insurance coverage for 2007. Many will escape the sticker shock of past years, as federal officials say 63 percent of enrollees in the federal employee health insurance program will see no increase in their premiums...
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Candidates in both parties are promising to work to cover more Americans without health insurance.
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OTTAWA (CP) - The federal government can readily find the &#36;41 billion  promised for a new health deal without cutting other programs or running into the red, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale pledged Thursday.
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WATERLOO  Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was playing down expectations today that next month&#39;s first ministers meeting in Ottawa would yield a health-care agreement between Ottawa and the provinces.
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The American Cancer Society this week will take its biggest step ever into the politics of health care reform, spending $15 million in advertising on behalf of Americans with too little health insurance or none at all.
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Many people agree that America&#39;s health-care system needs fixing. Few agree on how to fix it. During last week&#39;s debate and in a flurry of political ads that will become more intense as the Nov.
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Kentucky hospitals say the state is short-changing them on a deal struck more than 10 years ago to tax their revenues to raise matching funds for the Medicaid program.
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Two legislators instrumental in healthcare reform yesterday warned that some health plans under the new law might offer only minimal coverage and force subscribers to pay high out-of-pocket costs.
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Candidates in both parties are promising to overhaul the system and cover more of the 44.8 million people without insurance.