Ontario outlined its agenda for healthcare in a throne speech read yesterday (March 8). The government wants to lead the national dialogue on how to fund the best health care without crowding out other priorities like investing in schools, helping the vulnerable, protecting the environment, and investing in infrastructure and economic development. To begin the process, the government has promised these and other actions - keeping drugs affordable; ensuring money will follow the patient; creating an independent, expert advisory body to provide recommendations on clinical practice guidelines among other initiatives. One of the new initiatives of the Government is a new "patient-based payment" system that would save the province an estimated 10 to 20 per cent – that's $1.8 billion to $3.6 billion – of the $18 billion in tax money now given to hospitals annually. The plan would have hospitals compete for cash by doing acute care in-patient surgeries and such treatments as hip replacements more cheaply than rivals, with the lowest-cost bidders getting more of the work.