"In a report released last week, TD Bank said Ontario should consider other proposals to help cut costs, including...paying doctors according to quality and efficiency of care."

FYI, the notion of paying doctors according to the quality and efficiency of care is included in the Affordable Care Act.

Canada is also doing something the Health Insurace bill does not do. They are looking for ways to curb the actual cost of healthcare. And they are looking for government based solutions. Nationalizing parts of the system, putting doctors on salary, tying payments to outcomes/patient care. No one is seriously advocating moving to an American style Insurance system. In other words they are not looking to scrap their system. They are looking for ways to make it work better/cheaper.

Why should they be? I thought they were against limiting execubot pay?

No it's just that we in Canada take a more pragmatic view of healthcare costs instead of treating everything as a sacred cow unlike what the GOP and many of their supporters did during the HCR debate.

Let's break this down a little more.

Ontario is looking at legislation that would tie chief executive pay with the quality of patient care. Republican'ts are against this? Then shouldn't they also be against tying teacher pay to the results of the student education they provide? I thought they were FOR merit based pay.

Same goes for paying doctors based on patient care.

How about scaling back drug coverage for affluent seniors. Oh that's right, Republican'ts don't support 'hand-outs' and welfare unless it IS for the affluent.

Yeah, okay, I see why they are all atwitter over this news. It's going to lead to SOCIALISM through pay for performance and scaling back handouts to the rich. Damn, Canada is going the way of Germany circa 1938.

Canada is also the first among G8 countries to raise interest rates, which has become necessary due to economic growth and potential inflation. It's not like moves to regulate public healthcare are necessary because it's bankrupting the country.

Canada pays 9-10% of its GNP for health care results that are better than what the US pays at 16-17%. Take what you don't like about the Canadian system, fix it for 2% of GNP--- and you'd solve most of the US budgetary problematic projection for decades.

Also of note is that the Canadian health care costs per capita are almost HALF of what the US pays.

Canada's elected officials simply are acting like adults, unlike our own members of Congress. Like the U.S., Canada has a growing population of older citizens, and that's going to make both systems cost more money. But only the Canadians are being proactive.

The Republicans really seem to have a five year old's understanding of money. They really believe that tax cuts for millionaires are like cookies for Santa Claus -- if there are enough then presents magically appear. They talk about costs and premiums going up under the Democrat's [inadequate beginning of a] health reform plan without understanding that costs and premiums were going to go up much faster if we did nothing.

And the Republicans' repeated implication that the uninsured being treated in the emergency room was an acceptable (and cost-free) alternative to universal coverage, without seeming to understand that we pay for that much more expensive kind of treatment with taxpayer reimbursements to hospitals and increased premiums for the insured, makes me yell at the teevee every time I hear it.

It's time for the Democrats to quit acting like these morons have legitimate ideas and treat them like the intellectual children that they are by telling them to sit in a corner and keep quiet while the adults are working.

BINGO! gdp. The idea is that most industrialized countries pay a much smaller part of gdp for healthcare and get better results. The BFD does virtually nothing to contain costs which are THE budget buster which conservatives are constantly whining abpout complete with the Ayn Rand references. Now there is the notion that with a system like Canada's you put health care into the public sphere and that means politicians including Republicans and teabaggers, which I think a lot of Americans rightly fear, but it is still more humane then our system of letting a person's wealth and?or insurance carrier decide how much health care is available.

Thank you SteveT. If the US doesn't rein in health care costs, and soon, the US safety net will go down the tubes, and so will the last shreds of civility left to the body politic.

GOP leadership long ago jumped the shark of going Glenn Beck-batpoop-crazy -- everyday brings a fresh serving of Boehner, et al. passionately connecting dots that don't exist.

Yet this is somehow appealing to a disturbing percentage of American voters. If somehow the GOP gets back into power this year, this country thoroughly deserves what it gets. And it won't be pretty. Paul Ryan's Roadmap For America's Future anyone? (Ryan would become Chairman of the House Budget Committee).

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summarizes Ryan's vision for the country:

[Ryan's plan]"Provides Largest Tax Cuts in History for Wealthy, Raises Middle Class Taxes, Ends Guaranteed Medicare, Privatizes Social Security, Erodes Health Care "

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114

FYI, the notion of paying doctors according to the quality and efficiency of care is included in the Affordable Care Act.

And conservatives have a problem with that notion? Really? Doctors should not be paid according to how well they do their jobs?

And conservatives have a problem with that notion? Really? Doctors should not be paid according to how well they do their jobs?

Unpossible. The free market will ensure that doctors will be paid according to how well they do their jobs, so the ones that make the most money are automatically the best. No government action needed! /gop

Second, conservatives actually seem to believe their own rhetoric, which is more than a little disconcerting.

Let's see, they lost the PA special election because they believed their own rhetoric about how all real Muricans hate Nancy Pelosi...

According to TPM, "GOP sources" have internal partisan polls showing public support for repealing the health care law...

I bet I could dig up several more instances in just the past few days. It's fine with me if they want to believe their own propaganda instead of reality, as long as elections take place in the real world.

Which bring us to that perennial, those waits for hip operations in Canada - a sure-fire proof of the horrors of socialized medicine.

What was actually happening was that the Canadians were taking sensible steps to control costs, something conservatives are always saying we in the U.S. should do. Canada established avaerage waiting times for certain non-emergency procedures so that medical facilities did not have to carry as much overcapacity. This sounds like good fiscal management to me.

Even if all those changes are enacted, and I don't consider any of them to be particularly bad at all, Canada's healthcare system will remain vastly superior to the U.S.

An aging population puts more inherent stress on any system whatever, just because of greater demand - so it is worthless to complain that it compromises care or decision making etc. in Canada's system or any other. Those rich-wing critics are idiots and/or liars.

I, for one, would be happy to have access to Canada's system. Even after the hike, it would be far preferable to being hassled by Anthem and their hikes.

item 3 should be noted:

the cited measure all seem infinitely reasonable:

tying pay to performance
putting doctors on salary
letting the wealthy pay for their own damn drugs

those should be part of any program no matter what the financial condition of the system.