Policy trade-offs in "home-care": the Ontario example
Article Abstract:
As Canada enters the twenty-first century, its highly prized program, Medicare, is undergoing radical transformation. With technological change and the restructuring of health systems, the locus of care is shifting from institutions to the home. As a result, care that was formerly publicly financed under the Canada Health Act is technically becoming de-insured. This paper analyses the reform of community-based long-term care services in Ontario from 1985 to the present. During this period, three different parties, the Liberals, the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives, in turn, formed the government. Four different models were put forward before the current model was adopted by the current PC government. Each of these models is analysed with respect to design decisions that must be made in the policy dimensions of financing, delivery and allocation and evaluated in terms of equity, liberty, security and efficiency. Underlying the debate in Ontario was a fundamental disagreement about the role of government, reflected in views about the responsibilities of individuals and their families, and the appropriate place of for-profit organizations within a publicly-funded system. The reform of this sector has significance that goes beyond its boundaries, with wider implications and warnings for health care in general. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1999
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Reforming labour-market policy governance: the Quebec experience
Article Abstract:
Research on labour-market programs suggests that their effectiveness is enhanced when the private sector is involved in designing and directing them. One way of bringing this influence to bear involves the creation of concerted deliberative assemblies, dominated by organized business and labour, that are granted an important decision-making authority regarding these measures. This article examines the effort to launch such a deliberative assembly in Quebec, the only Canadian province that has, to this point, succeeded in putting such an assembly into place durably. The model has encountered significant obstacles - above all, the resistance of officials and politicians who are anxious to protect their traditional policy-making prerogatives, as well as to protect labour-market programs from uninformed and self-interested private-sector input. Nevertheless, the governance reform has acquired a clear record of accomplishments since it was launched in 1991. Moreover, while the Quebec political economy is clearly more auspicious for the concertation model than is the case elsewhere in Canada, it nevertheless offers some useful insights to those who might attempt to apply the model elsewhere in Canada. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1998
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
United States' electricity imports from Quebec and the fair trade issue
Article Abstract:
Hydro-Quebec's energy exports to neighboring American electric utilities have increased substantially over the last decade as a result of conditions created by the oil crisis of the seventies. These increases have mostly been in the form of interruptible energy exchanges. Considering prices and costs of production on both sides of the border, the prospects for further growth of firm energy exports to the United States appear to be reasonably good. Some institutional features of electricity production in Quebec may raise concerns about fair trading. These concerns have little foundation, however, when consideration is given to the size of energy imports relative to the American northeast market, the pricing method of Hydro-Quebec electricity exports to the United States, and the role played by the National Energy board in Canada. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Canadian Public Administration
Subject: Government
ISSN: 0008-4840
Year: 1988
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Political opposition in the United States. Political opposition in the contemporary world. Opposition questions
- Abstracts: Does welfare play any role in female headship decisions? Generalized Samuelson conditions and welfare theorems for nonsmooth economies
- Abstracts: Policy change through sector intersection: forest and aboriginal policy in Clayoquot Sound. Institutionalizing ambiguity: the management review group and the reshaping of the defense policy process in Canada
- Abstracts: Source-country social programs and the age composition of legal US immigrants. Wage-shifting effects of severance payments savings accounts in Columbia