Paradigm Freeze: Why It Is So Hard to Reform Health Care in Canada (Queen's Policy Studies Series) - Softcover

Lazar, Harvey; Forest, Pierre-Gerlier; Lavis, John N.; Church, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1553393244 ISBN 13: 9781553393245

Publisher: Queen's School of Policy Studies, 2013

Synopsis

Why has health care reform proved a stumbling block for provincial governments across Canada? What efforts have been made to improve a struggling system, and how have they succeeded or failed? In Paradigm Freeze, experts in the field answer these fundamental questions by examining and comparing six essential policy issues - regionalization, needs-based funding, alternative payment plans, privatization, waiting lists, and prescription drug coverage - in five provinces. Noting hundreds of recommendations from dozens of reports commissioned by provincial governments over the last quarter century - the great majority to little or no avail - the book focuses on careful diagnosis, rather than unplanned treatment, of the problem. Paradigm Freeze is based on thirty case studies of policy reform in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador. The contributors assess the nature and extent of healthcare reform in Canada since the beginning of the 1990s. They account for the generally limited extent of reform that has occurred, and identify the factors associated with the relatively few cases of large reform. An insightful new perspective on a problem that has plagued Canadian governments for decades, Paradigm Freeze is an important addition to the field of health policy. Contributors include John Church (University of Alberta), Michael Ducie (Alberta Health and Wellness), Pierre-Gerlier Forest (Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation), Stephen Tomblin (Memorial University), Jeff Braun Jackson (Ontario Professional Firefighters Association, Burlington, ON), Marie-Pascale Pomey (Université de Montréal), John N. Lavis (McMaster University), Harvey Lazar (Queen's University), Elisabeth Martin (Université Laval),Tom McIntosh (University of Regina), Dianna Pasic (McMaster University), Neale Smith (University of British Columbia), and Michael G. Wilson (McMaster University).

About this title

About the Author

Harvey Lazar is fellow, Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen's University, and senior research associate, Centre for Global Studies, University of Victoria.

Edition details

• Publisher: Queen's School of Policy Studies
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1553393244
• ISBN 13: 9781553393245
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416