Broken Promises: Why Canadian Medicare Is in Trouble and What Can Be Done

By Vertesi and Les Vertesi

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1553065522
• ISBN13: 9781553065524
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Epic Press
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Broken Promises - Book Review

Broken Promisesby Les Vertesi, M.D."Why Canadian Medicare is in trouble and what can be done to save it"This is a very thorough and complete description of the demise of Medicare over the past 40 years in Canada.Dr. Vertesi has succeeded in tackling the problem from many different facets. The economic background and roadmap of changes in attitudes, financing, and responsibility is very detailed and at times "heavy reading"; but necessary to understand the decline in availability of health care services.The responsibility for the reduction in support falls on all levels of government and all political parties.The detailed outline of the changes in the training of health care professionals, physicians and nurses due to reduced financial support, and outside influences on the various programs by non-professionals is very accurately described.As one reads this book, you realize how, over the years, health care planning has steadily been removed from health professionals and taken over by politicians and health care bureaucrats.The author has described an imaginative and thought provoking alternative to the present depressing and declining availability of health care services. As a physician who practiced before Medicare, I was impressed with the accuracy of the content, and the excellent description of events along the way from the beginning of Medicare to the present state of affairs.Health care professionals of all ages will find this book very informative and interesting; and I would certainly recommend it as "required reading" for all students in Medical and Nursing training programs.This book represents a great deal of research and thought, and Dr. Vertesi is to be thanked for a job well done.Al Boggie B.A., M.D., C.C.F.P., F.C.F.P.

Market forces in a Public Health System

Since I entered the Canadian healthcare industry 4 years ago, I've been dismayed that the system works even as well as it does, given that the way it is structured and managed defies all business logic (e.g. funding doesn't follow the patient so if you are good and patients come to you, you will have to treat more patients with the same budget). Now I've found someone who has expressed many of these issues in a book worth reading. Broken Promises - Why Canadian Medicare is in Trouble, addresses the healthcare dilemma from a business perspective. The book argues that because many of the fundamental elements of the system have no market - basis, that until we change this, we are doomed to failure. We will continue to face rising costs and decreasing access to services. While we often turn to healthcare experts to advise on how we can create a sustainable system, this book emphasizes that the incorporation of basic business concepts within a publicly-funded system may be at least part of the answer.