Pauline Tam wrote in "Quick action on healthcare best" (Ottawa Citizen, Dec.20, 2011):
"Roy Romanow, the former Saskatchewan premier who slashed medicare in an effort to save it, has fighting words for Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose minority government is seeking ways to rein in skyrocketing health-care costs.
No matter how the McGuinty Liberals decide to cut spending and reshape Ontario's health system, they should act decisively, move fast and brace for political heat, said Romanow.
"What you have to do is implement the reforms as quickly as you can and as effectively as you can in order to get the population to understand that it isn't all bad," Romanow said in an interview. "In fact, it's probably the right thing to do."
The Ontario government, crippled by a $16-billion deficit and weakening economy, is contemplating spending cuts and changes to the health system that broadly resemble those of deficit-plagued Saskatchewan in the 1990s. As premier of the province that invented medicare, Romanow enraged many people by closing hospitals, slashing public drug spending and reorganizing the way health services were delivered.
Rural residents grumbled about losing their hospitals - and the jobs that went with them. Scores of nurses were laid off. Doctors complained about their diminished clout.
Voters and labour unions were particularly shocked that the austerity measures came from an NDP government that styled itself a guardian of Tommy Douglas's medicare legacy.
The Ontario Health Coalition, a pro-medicare group, has warned that this province faces a similar fate, which would jeopardize the quality of patient care.
Yet despite fierce public opposition, Romanow's reforms allowed Saskatchewan to balance its budget three years into his term and won his party a second majority government.
Romanow said he tried to remain faithful to medicare's core values of fairness and compassion. He indicated, for example, that his government avoided privatizing certain health services or introducing user fees, which would only have shifted costs from the public purse to individuals who had to pay out of pocket.
Such an approach would have done nothing to reduce the overall share of provincial wealth devoted to health spending - a situation that McGuinty also understands, said Romanow. "In my judgment, I think Premier McGuinty has recognized the traps of false economy. I would say Premier McGuinty is making all the right overtures.""
*
Wow - just look at that:
Romanow is a now some kinda FLICKING socialist hero for trotting out the Michael Decter-ian contradiction of "slashing medicare, in order to save it" (see here, pg.11-12).
It was Romanow's NDP predecessor Tommy Douglas who invented the "false economy" called medicare!
Now, Roy Romanow has strangely somehow become a fountain of sage advice for Dalton McGuinty's monopolist Liberal ideologues?!?! WTF?
Romanow was squeezed by the Martin/Chretien health cuts, as Ontario's Mike Harris also was - yet look at who's now being touted as some kind of advisor/ hero to the Liberals, and who's been incessantly demonized by the lib left!
The only Liberal overture playing here in Ontario is a prelude to tragedy, with McGuinty's faux-finance ministerDwight Duncan Don Drummond and faux-health minister Deb Matthews Romanow setting the sombre tone.
Enjoy your holidays; next year will be real ugly.
*
The whitewashing of Michael Decter, the normalization of Decter, the rehabilitation of Decter, was on full display in the Toronto Star's Feb.27, 2017 story cleverly written by Theresa Boyle. Boyle for some reason, chose to mention Decter in her story, yet, did not bother to mention (ie covered up) Decter's fascistic role in cutting health care during his stint with Bob Rae' NDP socialists. Again, the biased Toronto Star peddles FAKE NEWS (peppered with skewed bias). Boyle could have revealed Decter's destructive politics, but decided to hide (to propagandize) that Decter's own doings then, are quite relevant to the issues going on now - much as the Toronto Star's own role was (and is) for that matter.
"Roy Romanow, the former Saskatchewan premier who slashed medicare in an effort to save it, has fighting words for Premier Dalton McGuinty, whose minority government is seeking ways to rein in skyrocketing health-care costs.
No matter how the McGuinty Liberals decide to cut spending and reshape Ontario's health system, they should act decisively, move fast and brace for political heat, said Romanow.
"What you have to do is implement the reforms as quickly as you can and as effectively as you can in order to get the population to understand that it isn't all bad," Romanow said in an interview. "In fact, it's probably the right thing to do."
The Ontario government, crippled by a $16-billion deficit and weakening economy, is contemplating spending cuts and changes to the health system that broadly resemble those of deficit-plagued Saskatchewan in the 1990s. As premier of the province that invented medicare, Romanow enraged many people by closing hospitals, slashing public drug spending and reorganizing the way health services were delivered.
Rural residents grumbled about losing their hospitals - and the jobs that went with them. Scores of nurses were laid off. Doctors complained about their diminished clout.
Voters and labour unions were particularly shocked that the austerity measures came from an NDP government that styled itself a guardian of Tommy Douglas's medicare legacy.
The Ontario Health Coalition, a pro-medicare group, has warned that this province faces a similar fate, which would jeopardize the quality of patient care.
Yet despite fierce public opposition, Romanow's reforms allowed Saskatchewan to balance its budget three years into his term and won his party a second majority government.
Romanow said he tried to remain faithful to medicare's core values of fairness and compassion. He indicated, for example, that his government avoided privatizing certain health services or introducing user fees, which would only have shifted costs from the public purse to individuals who had to pay out of pocket.
Such an approach would have done nothing to reduce the overall share of provincial wealth devoted to health spending - a situation that McGuinty also understands, said Romanow. "In my judgment, I think Premier McGuinty has recognized the traps of false economy. I would say Premier McGuinty is making all the right overtures.""
*
Wow - just look at that:
Romanow is a now some kinda FLICKING socialist hero for trotting out the Michael Decter-ian contradiction of "slashing medicare, in order to save it" (see here, pg.11-12).
It was Romanow's NDP predecessor Tommy Douglas who invented the "false economy" called medicare!
Now, Roy Romanow has strangely somehow become a fountain of sage advice for Dalton McGuinty's monopolist Liberal ideologues?!?! WTF?
Romanow was squeezed by the Martin/Chretien health cuts, as Ontario's Mike Harris also was - yet look at who's now being touted as some kind of advisor/ hero to the Liberals, and who's been incessantly demonized by the lib left!
The only Liberal overture playing here in Ontario is a prelude to tragedy, with McGuinty's faux-finance minister
Enjoy your holidays; next year will be real ugly.
*
The whitewashing of Michael Decter, the normalization of Decter, the rehabilitation of Decter, was on full display in the Toronto Star's Feb.27, 2017 story cleverly written by Theresa Boyle. Boyle for some reason, chose to mention Decter in her story, yet, did not bother to mention (ie covered up) Decter's fascistic role in cutting health care during his stint with Bob Rae' NDP socialists. Again, the biased Toronto Star peddles FAKE NEWS (peppered with skewed bias). Boyle could have revealed Decter's destructive politics, but decided to hide (to propagandize) that Decter's own doings then, are quite relevant to the issues going on now - much as the Toronto Star's own role was (and is) for that matter.
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