“Nothing you can know that isn’t known. Nothing you can see that isn’t shown. Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”
“All You Need is Love” by The Beatles
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The Beatles: “All You Need Is Love”
“Nothing you can know that isn’t known. Nothing you can see that isn’t shown. Nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…”
“All You Need is Love” by The Beatles
Find on iTunes
The Beatles: “All You Need Is Love”
February is Heart Month and what you eat can affect the health of your heart. However, heart healthy foods don’t have to be bland. The recipes featured this month will be delicious, heart healthy, and easy to make meals you can prepare ahead of time, freeze and enjoy anytime.
We’ve waited four years for another winter Olympics and they are finally here! For the next 2 weeks athletes from around the world will put it all on the line to strive to be the best in their particular sport. How do they get there? Through diligent physical and mental training and excellent coaching. The following from the Hamilton Spectator has drawn a parallel to how Olympic athletes are coached and trained to how Canada can improve its healthcare system. Read on and see if you agree that coaching may be the missing link to giving Canadians the best healthcare possible.
The Hamilton Spectator: Healthcare Improvement and the Olympics
In this amazing act of kindness, Mitchell Marcus, a developmentally delayed teenager finally is able to live his dream of playing basketball on his high school team.
So your spouse, child, mother, brother, friend is injured in a car accident. They broke both legs and have been quickly discharged from hospital. An Occupational Therapist visits the home and prescribes some equipment, sets them up on the main floor, makes sure they have options for bathing, toileting, sleeping, can eat and get out of the house if they needed to, and calculates the amount of care they need in order to safely survive at home in this state. This is calculated in minutes of care, and converted to a dollar benefit based on pre-determined (government) hourly rates.
Prior to 2010, this money (attendant care) would be given to the client, and they could use this to pay the providers of their care. They could choose the provider based on many factors, with most selecting the person that they were least embarrassed with in the washroom and shower.
In September 2010, FSCO decided that this benefit would only be provided when the care provider could prove an “economic loss”. I get why they wanted to do this. Too often, attendant care monies were “improving” the financial position of the injured (extra income) and was not always being used for care. As it is inherent in the insurance act to not “advantage” people, the industry decided they needed to make some changes.
Proving an “economic loss” became a hot topic. Some insurers wanted to only pay the amount of the loss, and others would pay the amount of attendant care benefit (as calculated by the OT), as long as a loss existed. This issue was tried in court, and in Henry vs Gore (2013) the decision was that “the extent of the economic loss was irrelevant…as long as there was any economic loss during the period in question the person can qualify for the services they provided…”
Then, just last month this decision was overturned by the Ontario government, the SABS were amended, and now people providing care cannot receive more “than the extent of the economic loss sustained by the attendant…as a direct result of providing the care…”
So, I ask, can the government really suck and blow? I guess so because there are so many elements of this that both defy logic and are clearly unfair. Here is my list:
If the government wants to truly suck here, then they should not be able to blow. Either pay an agency the number of hours needed, at the agency hourly rate, without monthly or policy limits, OR pay an unqualified provider the amount of care needed calculated at the pre-determined rates. If you cannot advantage people, then you should not be able to disadvantage people either. Their accident already disadvantaged them enough.
What am I?
A tornado or hurricane.
The Super Bowl has come and gone and another NFL season has come to an end. Whether you enjoy football or not, the following story of a rising star athlete is sure to amaze and inspire you.