Saturday, February 29, 2020

Analysis of Canada’s Healthcare System

Analysis of Canadas Healthcare System INTRODUCTION Canada is a developed country located in the northern part of North America. In 1867, it became a self-governing state while retaining its tie with the British crown. When it comes to economic and technology, Canada is developing in parallel to its neighbour to the south, which is the United State of America. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, with a democratic constitutional monarchy as their form of government. In the past years, Canada’s politics faces the challenges of reaching the population’s demands for quality improvement in education, social services, economic competitiveness and health care. The health care system in Canada is funded publicly and delivered on a provincial or territorial basis, within a guidelines set by the federal government (Canadian Health Care, 2007). Every Canadian citizens are provided with preventative services and medical treatments from general practitioners at the same time having access to hospitalisation, dental surgery and other medical services. However, in the past few years Canada’s Healthcare System is facing controversy because of it’s soaring costs. I NCREASING COST OF UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN CANADA According to a latest study (Esmail N., Palacios M., 2013), conducted by the Fraser Institute with the title â€Å" The Price of Public Health Care Insurance: 2013 Edition †, the average Canadian household now pays approximately $7,860 in taxes for ‘health care insurance.’, which is 53.3% higher than of in 2003. Over the past decade the cost of healthcare in Canada doubled and is believe to exceed the $200 billion budget mark. Canada’s health care costs continue to grow at a faster rate than the government’s revenue, largely driven by spending on prescription drugs. In the last five years, however, growth rates in pharmaceutical spending have been matched by hospital spending and overtaken by physician spending, mainly due to increas ed provider remuneration (Marchildon G., 2013). In addition, this trend is also caused by what the health system spends on doctors, which rose by an average of 6.8 % every year. Of that value, 3.6% was caused by the increase in physician’s fees. Other driving factors for the increase in healthcare costs are population growth, aging population and increased health care demand. Consequently, this rise in Canada’s universal health care costs is said to be the reason why the government has limited ability to provide other services such as education, transportation and pension benefits. Increased health care costs will results into higher labor costs, which might cause companies to hire lesser workers, produce less output, or raise their prices. The high expenditure for health causes the budget for other government programs and priorities be restricted. EFFECT ON CANADA’S ECONOMY The abrupt rise in health care costs and insurance can affect several parts of the econo my. The rise in health care costs can cause job growth to slow down because it costs companies more money to add new employees. Wage increases have also slowed for current employees, since companies must spend more money on health care premiums. The public sector includes the federal, state and municipal governments. The public sector is dealing with costs rising more than revenues. This places a high degree of examination on discretionary health care spending. Companies are faced with rising health care spending often cut other expenses, such as reducing health care benefits, requiring employees to pay a larger share of their health care benefits, or reducing wage increases.

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Is Multiculturalism consistent with liberalism Essay

Is Multiculturalism consistent with liberalism - Essay Example One of the basic questions related with multiculturalism and liberalism has been whether the former is consistent with the latter. As Brian Barry assumes, multiculturalism, or the ‘politics of difference’, makes the basic claim that â€Å"the self-image of liberalism as a tolerant and open creed is inaccurate. In fact, it is said, liberalism imposes a false universality that discriminates against minorities of all kinds.† (Barry 1997, P 3). In a reflective exploration of whether multiculturalism is consistent with liberalism, it becomes evident that these socio-political philosophies are not consistent with each other, mainly because both the philosophies are rooted in different ideologies. Analyzing the relationship between multiculturalism and liberalism, one recognizes that the roots of both these philosophies are in different concepts. Essentially, liberalism is the popular political philosophy in the modern world and it is understood in many different ways su ch as a weak form of social democracy, a political position favorable to markets, etc. According to Brian Barry, â€Å"liberalism stands for individualism (versus communalism), equality (as against any notion of natural or divinely-appointed hierarchy), and moral universalism (as against moral particularism).

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Selection Interview as an Effective Employee Selection Practice Essay

Selection Interview as an Effective Employee Selection Practice - Essay Example The rationale for the selection interview as the final determination of a candidate’s fate is that it will predict the performance of the potential candidate. However, this is a misplaced concept. Even lie detector test need a baseline to determine which statement are lies and which are not. Without a baseline for the candidate’s demeanor, inflections and overall behaviour it is very hard to accurately determine his intention and motivations or predict his future performance. Just the same, given that selection interviews are still preffered by many managers to â€Å"feel† their candidates, the Human Resoruce Management Department should equip these managers the skills and knowledge they need to have. â€Å"A competency-based framework is advocated as the best way to creating a level playing field for evaluating candidates and for improving the validity of the selection interview. Competencies should be developed as part of a job analysis in which job descriptio n defines the duties or tasks invovled and a person specification details the characteristics or knowledge, skills and abilities required to perform the job. Some competencies can be assessed only by experts and others may require work samples, while still others need to be monitored or assess over time in the job. Competency approaches should therefore be developed as part of the corporate resource policy.† (Swift & Robertson, 2000) According to Lou Adler (1998) in the book â€Å"Hire with Your Head† The best interviewers use two different critical thinking skills, one for the hiring decision and another for information gathering. They recognize that the hiring decision must be intuitive, since there is never enough information to match abilities, needs, and interests... In Hiring the Best the following were cautioned to be the normal problems when a the wrong person is hired for the job. â€Å"Poor analysis of job functions, leading to the recruitment of the wrong people. Misguided recruitment strategies, leading to an inadequte pool of talent. Poor analysis of the necessary skill sets and behaviors, leading to inappropriate selection criteria.Inadequate initial screening, leading to wasted time and the wrong candidate on the short list. Selection interviews it is best to be prepared, knowing what you want is better than the candidate telling you that you want them, a good charismatic salesman can do that. Unless the position that needs to be filled up is for a salesman that is not a good way to choose the best candidate. The job description of the position to be filled should be on hand and in the mind of the interviewer. But knowing the technical requirement of the job is not enough. The interviewer should also be familiar with the culture or operating atmosphere of the position that is going to be filled. Information such as these is useful in determining the right behaviour, temperament and attitude needed for the job that should be in the ideal candidate. For organizations, the best interviewers are those that do not harbour or display any strong biases in any form. Training the interviewers in basic psychology and conducting scientific interview is another strategy in assuring professionally conducted selection interviews. The best result however may not be within the range or near one hundred percent as far as choosing the best and ideal candidates. This is due to the fact that selection interviews are intuitive in nature. It’s just that some are better liars than most.