Private clinic pushing to permit extra-billing.
July 23, 2012: Higher universal costs will result from permitting extra-billing by medical practitioners, writes David Schreck in The Tyee. Schreck explains how extra-billing affects patients and their access to health care, countering arguments that spending private dollars to reach the front of the line is harmless by demonstrating the value of fee negotiations.
"If talk shows are any indication, discussion of Dr. Brian Day's challenge of the constitutionality of some provisions of the Medicare Protection Act can easily go off on many tangents. For the future of Medicare as we know it, it is important to focus the discussion on the central issue of extra-billing, which is prohibited under the act.
Extra-billing occurs when a physician bills a patient for a service that could be billed to the Medical Services Plan, whether or not MSP is billed. Sections 17-19 of the act define direct or extra-billing (synonymous terms). The term double billing is not defined in the act…"
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July 30, 2012: Paul Buchheit reports for Nation of Change that privatization usually has poor payoffs for the general public, raising costs for consumers and reducing revenue streams for public coffers. He notes that privatization can only work in the context of strict regulation, but goes on to say that it rarely benefits the delivery of essential public services. Buchheit demonstrates that in the US, privatization has adversely affected education, health care, banking, prisons, military, water and other utilities.
HALIFAX, NS, July 26, 2012: Public health care advocates from across the country are paying close attention to the Council of the Federation meeting in Halifax. The Nova Scotia Citizen's Health Care Network, of which the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU/NUPGE) and the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) are major supporters, held a press conference and a series of public events to outline their vision to improve Canada's public health care system.