Some More Interesting Stories For You

I saw some interesting stories that I thought that I should let you know about right away. Here are some of them:

ONTARIO APARTMENT RENTAL COSTS

I did a story recently about "Windsor boasts lowest apartment rental rates in Canada" by Dave Battagello, Windsor Star, March 15, 2018.  As can be expected, the prices here are very low in comparison with other cities in this Province and frankly within the entire country. Windsor is right at the bottom of the list.

Here is some additional information which I found very interesting that shows where the Ontario cities fit in. Please note that this list deals with cities across Canada, but I am deleting the non-Ontario ones:

		1 Bedroom	2 Bedrooms
Pos.	City	Price	Price
2	Toronto	$1,970	$2,500
5	Barrie	$1,270	$1,530
8	Ottawa	$1,100	$1,360
8	St Catharines	$1,100	$1,300
10	Oshawa	$1,080	$1,240
12	Kitchener	$1,050	$1,290
13	Hamilton	$1,040	$1,290
14	Kingston	$1,020	$1,360
15	London	$920	$1,150
25	Windsor	$710	$900

You will note that you find, dear reader, the lowest rental prices in Windsor in this list. 

COMPARATIVE HEALTHCARE ANALYSIS

Although written in 2014, I just saw this very interesting report about the performance of healthcare around the world. It is "MIRROR,MIRROR ON THE WALL How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally."   It was prepared by the Commonwealth Fund in 2014.  In it, 11 countries are examined.  

The reason I am posting it is that it is well-written, even though done a few years ago. I saw the 2017 report and will deal with that shortly afterwards. However, to be direct, I am shocked about how badly Canada and the United States perform. I just could not believe that at all.

In particular, here are some interesting references to Canada that I found in the 2014 document:

-"Patients in the U.S. have rapid access to specialized health care services; however, they are less likely to report rapid access to primary care than people in leading countries in the study. In other countries, like Canada, patients have little to no financial burden, but experience wait times for such specialized services."

-"The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access, and efficiency…Canada and the U.S. rank tenth and eleventh, respectively."

-"Among those who had a lab test in the previous two years, sicker adults in Canada were the most likely to experience delays in being notified about abnormal results."

-" Patients in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Switzerland have rapid access to elective or nonemergency surgery compared with patients in the U.S. Canada ranks last or near-to-last on most measures of timeliness of care."

-"Among sicker respondents, those in Canada and the U.S. were most likely to visit the emergency department for a condition that could have been treated by a regular doctor had one been available"

I found another version of this document in 2017. Canada improved but not very much:

-"Other countries that rank near the bottom on overall performance include France (10th) and Canada (9th)"

-"Exhibit 3 illustrates the countries’ overall performance score.  This exhibit makes evident the markedly lower performance of Canada (9), France (10), and the United States (11) compared to the other countries."

-"In contrast, the United States, France, and Canada have larger disparities between lower and higher-income adults. These were especially large on measures related to financial barriers, such as skipping needed doctor visits or dental care, forgoing treatments or tests, and not filling prescriptions because of the cost."

-"U.K., Australia, and the Netherlands were nearly always ranked among the three top countries; the U.S., France and Canada were nearly always ranked among the three bottom countries."

What was written above tells us, dear reader, that Canada does not do very well and for quite some time. What can be done to improve the situation is something that must be considered.

HOUSE SALES IN OUR AREA

I thought this is very interesting:

"Housing sales have been slumping in Windsor in 2018, in part because there are fewer homes on the market.

According to the Windsor-Essex County Association of Realtors, residential house sales were down 26.2 per cent in February, compared to the same time one year ago.

Sales year-to-date are also down by 21.8 per cent over the first two months of 2017."

(CBC News, March 16, 2018 )

Who knows, I might be able to make a lot of money for my place if I want to sell because I live in Tecumseh:

"the lack of supply but increased demand is leading to some of the bidding wars seen in the area. He has a list of buyers, especially in areas like Tecumseh and LaSalle, but not much to show them."

From what I have been able to see so far, my house prices has gone up a nice sum.  However, I do have a problem. If I want to buy a new place, I'll probably want to get a very nice house too. My expectation is that such a house's price has also skyrocketed upwards as well. So how can I afford to buy that? I cannot to be blunt about it. That may explain why there are not a lot of houses on the market.