Tag Archives | healthcare

Truly Free Healthcare: Is it Possible?

imagineKrista Simpson describes a student-run, multi-discipline health care center, that requires no ID, no insurance, and no fees, for Torontoist. Is this a possible future model, not just for a marginalised identity-less population, but for Canada and the world at large?

At IMAGINE, a clinic organized and run by U of T students, multidisciplinary teams provide medical care to patients who would otherwise go without.

The life of someone studying in a medical field is a busy one, but for a group of University of Toronto students, even the hectic schedule does not stop them from taking on an extra project.

They are volunteers at a clinic called IMAGINE, an acronym for Interprofessional Medical and Allied Groups for Improving Neighbourhood Environments, which runs out of the Queen West Community Health Centre (168 Bathurst Street) on Saturdays. Patients do not need a health card or identification to be seen. Most who come through their doors are homeless or are new immigrants.

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Vermont Passes Country’s First Single-Payer Healthcare Law

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin

Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin

Vermont Gov. Pete Shumlin “treats healthcare as a right and not a privilege.” Well done Vermont, well done. Healthcare Finance News reports:

In what he described as “both an opportunity and an obligation,” Vermont Gov. Pete Shumlin has signed the country’s first single-payer law, setting the state on a course to be first with a publicly financed healthcare system.

Shumlin, who campaigned for governor on promises to pursue a single-payer system for the state, took little more than four months since his January inauguration to set the state on that course.

“We gather here today to launch the first single payer system in America, to do in Vermont what has taken too long – to have a healthcare (system) that is the best in the world that treats healthcare as a right and not a privilege, where healthcare follows the individual not the employer,” he said at the bill signing, held May 26 in the state’s capital of Montpelier.

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