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Trudeau Popularity - or not (various polling, etc.)

Once, just once, I would like to see this Federal Government actually stay within it’s Constitutional boundaries.

Whether a National Pharmacare program is laudable or will be well run is entirely beside the point. The feds are not responsible for healthcare, provinces are. The more they wander into that space, the more lines of accountability get muddled and the more federal funding (which is not bottomless) gets diverted from things that are their responsibility (cough Defence cough).
 
Once, just once, I would like to see this Federal Government actually stay within it’s Constitutional boundaries.

Whether a National Pharmacare program is laudable or will be well run is entirely beside the point. The feds are not responsible for healthcare, provinces are. The more they wander into that space, the more lines of accountability get muddled and the more federal funding (which is not bottomless) gets diverted from things that are their responsibility (cough Defence cough).

Isn't it somewhat of a shared sphere of responsibility ?
 
Is the diabetic medicine being used for diabetes or weight loss?
I believe they’re talking about insulin and testing supplies.epic might end up in there for approved on-label use.

On a population level. It would be interesting to know if broader availability of effective weight loss medication had any big picture impact on reducing other medical and economic losses that come from obesity. Bone and joint issues, vulnerability to other illnesses with obesity as a conorbidity, etc…
 
Isn't it somewhat of a shared sphere of responsibility ?
No. It's provincial. The federal government just pays provinces to respect federal legislation. The provinces don't have to take the money, and if they don't, they're free to try all sorts of things to actually deliver health care instead of puffing out their chests about how we have public health insurance, if you can access health care to make a claim against it.
 
Could just eat less and exercise more. This isn't a blanket approach but a good start without medications.
Yes, many people could simply do that. But that doesn’t make me any less interested in how the economics of that hypothetical would play out.
 
Nice of the Liberals and NDP to unilaterally amend the Consitution.

Tell me, would they equally be ok with Alberta or Saskatchewan deciding that they now want there own provincial armed forces? Or external affairs department?
Alberta set up a trade office in Washington DC a few years back, much to the disapproval of Ottawa...

(Actually I think Harper was PM at the time & Alberta setting up a trade office in DC was a non issue at the time. Harper was pro developing the oil industry, and the office focused a lot on selling oil down south, pipelines, etc)


Last week the office received a visit from the Premier herself & some vitality was injected into the office with updated goals & projects...

So Alberta already kinda has an external affairs office of sorts. The plan to open up another office in Qatar or Dubai or whatever seems to have fizzled out for the time being...




(Unrelated story - but I went down to the Alberta trade office YEARS ago shortly after it opened, and while down there I did a ride-along with DC Metro police...and hoooollllyyyyy cow...eye opener)
 
Having seen in the concrete what happens when people think drugs have their bad habits covered (they throw caution to the winds), I'm skeptical of any promise of improvements in the general fitness of the population resulting from miracle lifestyle correction drugs.

Easy prediction: governments, having undertaken a financial obligation, will seek to cut costs. They will seek pricing deals, or find ways to approximately impose them. Companies will react by increasing prices for people not covered. This will effectively transfer part of the fiscal burden away from the taxpaying population as a whole and onto people unlucky enough to need medications and not be covered. (This is just observable and observed in what governments and big insurance companies already do.)

If anyone really wants to try to reap benefits downstream by reducing other demands for health care, blood pressure and cholesterol meds ought to be ahead of birth control.
 
Alberta set up a trade office in Washington DC a few years back, much to the disapproval of Ottawa...

(Actually I think Harper was PM at the time & Alberta setting up a trade office in DC was a non issue at the time. Harper was pro developing the oil industry, and the office focused a lot on selling oil down south, pipelines, etc)


Last week the office received a visit from the Premier herself & some vitality was injected into the office with updated goals & projects...

So Alberta already kinda has an external affairs office of sorts. The plan to open up another office in Qatar or Dubai or whatever seems to have fizzled out for the time being...




(Unrelated story - but I went down to the Alberta trade office YEARS ago shortly after it opened, and while down there I did a ride-along with DC Metro police...and hoooollllyyyyy cow...eye opener)



etc...

11 voices.
 
Having seen in the concrete what happens when people think drugs have their bad habits covered (they throw caution to the winds), I'm skeptical of any promise of improvements in the general fitness of the population resulting from miracle lifestyle correction drugs.

Easy prediction: governments, having undertaken a financial obligation, will seek to cut costs. They will seek pricing deals, or find ways to approximately impose them. Companies will react by increasing prices for people not covered. This will effectively transfer part of the fiscal burden away from the taxpaying population as a whole and onto people unlucky enough to need medications and not be covered. (This is just observable and observed in what governments and big insurance companies already do.)

If anyone really wants to try to reap benefits downstream by reducing other demands for health care, blood pressure and cholesterol meds ought to be ahead of birth control.

To be clear, I’m not at all suggesting that opening up widespread availability to weight loss meds should be done as an alternative to better, healthier lifestyles. It was idle musing.

Blood pressure and cholesterol meds would seem to be to be exactly the kinds of things we would see covered by national pharmacare, along with things like birth control and insulin. I think that’s pretty great. Lots of people need medication to help with those things, and it helps serve as basic preventative care to stop very controllable underlying conditions from progressing to much more significant negative medical outcomes.
 


Well he did forget to mention Alberta a few years back when listing off all the provinces & territories...

Alberta DOES pay a lot of bills in other provinces in the form of equalization payments (something Alberta pays into substantially each year, but doesn't receive a dime in return)

He's deliberately tried to kill off Alberta's primary industries (the same industries that ultimately pay a lot of the bills in other provinces, and provide both the provincial and federal governments with billions of dollars annually) - which had resulted in a once vibrant industry laying off thousands...


Albertans weren't fooled into disliking Trudeau. He's earned our sheer 'dislike' all on his own for being a treasonous, crooked piece of s**t who's deliberately destroyed the very country he was elected to lead...

The fact that he has almost single handedly destroyed an entire country is why he's disliked, not just by Albertans but by the entire country. The fact that he doesn't seem to realize that obvious connection is beyond me...


______________________________


Remember about 6 months ago, I mentioned a piece of legislation he was going to introduce right around now called for Online Safety Act? Well incase anybody hasn't heard about it yet (the mainstream media hasn't really focused on it at all - $600M does buy a lot of loyalty...) Trudeau quietly introduced it to the Senate first, which it passed, and will now head to the HoC for reading and voting there...a reverse order of how new laws are usually passed.

No doubt done this way because of how unpopular and unnecessary this law will be with the citizens, who did not get a say in its introduction at all...and it'll be shoved through and approved because the NDP has sold out its voters & supporters to support the LPC no matter how stupid or sinister the venture...


So in the somewhat near future, we get to look forward to registering your government issued ID with your online profile for everything from social media, YouTube, online discussion forums, even read-only websites. The government will state that this is nothing to be concerned about, and the only time the government will concern itself with what someone says is if it is deemed Hate Speech...whatever that is.

But it still allows the government to see what kind of stuff you read, watch, the commentary one leaves on discussion forums, what kind of porn people watch, etc etc building up a profile that can - and WILL - be used by the government against ordinary people, whether they've engaged in Hate Speech or not...

And to insult our intelligence even further, they will undoubtedly use children's safety as their retort for anybody who opposes this law - after all, who wants to be the party that votes against a bill that will "help protect kids" from all those nasty online dangers? Nobody...

So its more internet censorship, this time with the draconian 'big brother is monitoring what you do online and knows EXACTLY who you are' - slithered through quietly - and anybody who objects to this draconian law will get labelled as someone who doesnt care about the safety of kids.

its evil wrapped in more evil...


THIS is why people hate Trudeau. Nobody was tricked into hating him, he's earned it. Literally the one guy who could ACTUALLY ruin the internet...
 
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To be clear, I’m not at all suggesting that opening up widespread availability to weight loss meds should be done as an alternative to better, healthier lifestyles. It was idle musing.

Blood pressure and cholesterol meds would seem to be to be exactly the kinds of things we would see covered by national pharmacare, along with things like birth control and insulin. I think that’s pretty great. Lots of people need medication to help with those things, and it helps serve as basic preventative care to stop very controllable underlying conditions from progressing to much more significant negative medical outcomes.

Why not just credit them fully against income tax?
 
Why not just credit them fully against income tax?
brilliant and simple solution, much better than a government run programme and it can be as inclusive as you wish. For those whose income levels preclude paying taxes a complete rebate of drugs purchased could still be issued through the filed tax form. I like it.
 
Why not just credit them fully against income tax?
Because that does nothing for the person living paycheck to paycheck who jas no ability to buy them now when they’re actually needed. That also necessitates keeping receipts for everything, which for prescriptions could be a huge hassle and easily lost- plus the administrative burden of actually claiming them against taxes. I’ve dealt with claiming repetitive medical expense tax credit claims before, and it’s a pain in the ass.

It sounds like what you want is means testing; there are far more effective and reasonable ways to do that. I, however, remain in favour of universal pharmacare.

show me a government-run programme that has ever been properly delivered and administered and I will gladly withdraw all objections

My wife and I just went through EI maternity/parental benefits and it was quite simple and straightforward and delivered effectively. We’ve also made regular use of public sector employer plan-run prescription medication benefits on her end for years and it’s generally been quite smooth. There‘a no reason the basic administration of provincial pharmacare plans under the national model can’t run similarly smoothly.
 
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