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1. Opponents of health-care reform continue to ignore wait times data

   Appeared in CBC Opinion, May 12, 2019 Perceptions about how much we pay for health care in Canada vary wildly. Some call it a “free” system. Some analysts (including yours truly) try to figure out how much we actually pay for it through taxes (for the ...

2. Government's pharmacare plan raises more questions than answers

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, March 30, 2019 The latest federal budget revealed the Trudeau government’s plan to move forward on national pharmacare. The problem, however, is that the government still hasn’t outlined exactly what it means by “national ...

3. The Private Cost of Public Queues for Medically Necessary Care, 2019

   One measure of the privately borne cost of wait times is the value of time that is lost while waiting for treatment. Valuing only hours lost during the average work week, the estimated cost of waiting for care in Canada for patients who were in ...

4. Trudeau government advisors prescribe vast bureaucracy to manage national pharmacare

   Unfortunately, the federal government’s track record of creating reliable and accurate data systems is not good. ...

5. Is Ottawa competent enough to design an efficient and effective national pharmacare program?

   A national formulary—essentially a list of drugs—is unlikely to match the comprehensive lists covered by private insurance plans. ...

6. Private sector helping address physician scarcity in the U.S.

   While Canada has one of the most expensive universal health-care systems in the world, the number of physicians relative to the Canadian population ranks well below the average of other wealthy countries. Moreover, the relatively long ...

7. Ford health-care plan falls well short of what's needed

   Appeared in the Ottawa Sun, March 6, 2019 Last week, the Ford government finally lifted the veil on The People's Health Care Act, which includes changes to how health care will be organized in Ontario. Specifically, the bill formalizes the government ...

8. Trudeau government's drug-pricing plan may limit access to new life-improving medicines

   Appeared in the Vancouver Province, February 21, 2019 It seems quite clear—the Trudeau government wants Ottawa to become the public insurer for prescription drugs, in part to contain drug costs. In a pre-emptive move in 2017, the government proposed ...

9. Alberta should look abroad—and next door—for better ways to provide health care

   Appeared in the Calgary Sun, February 15, 2019 Albertans, like Canadians more broadly, spend comparatively high amounts on health care but only receive modest performance from the system compared to other universal care countries. Thankfully, there’s much ...

10. Health Care Reform Options for Alberta

    Canada is widely acknowledged to be a comparatively high spender among countries with universal health care but achieves only a modest to average rating on measures of performance. Within Canada, Alberta is a relatively high spender with modest results. ...