It's all right... or is it?
February 21, 2008 | 10:54 AM
Cyril Cook
It seems Greenpeace’s environmental minions are intent on dogging the premier on every stop of his campaign.
This is great because I would rather see a million environmentalists do this than 100 men and women who can’t find work to provide food for their family. We must be doing all right here in Alberta.
Thankfully however, health care, which is a much more important issue, came to the fore front today after Jack Davis, the CEO of the Calgary Health Region, demanded an immediate injection of $115 million.
Unfortunately, none of the party’s platforms has any great plan for what ails our health care system, as all of them just fiddle with the edges just as all politicians have done before them. Throw more money at the problem, or proclaim it will be a “fix for a generation” and hope that this time it will be enough. Or promise more doctors and nurses just so you can repeat the promise four years later, all the while health-care continues to deteriorate and people keep suffering needlessly.
The Ministry of Health and Wellness already consumes over 36 per cent of Alberta’s annual budget and will continue to rise every year until Albertans and politicians get over themselves and realize that we do not have the best health care system in the world…And seriously look at having some form of privatization.
Comments: (4)
A parallel private system would simply exacerbate the problems we have now. The issue isn't that there aren't enough people wanting to become doctors so we need to offer more money, there are already more people who want to become med students than there are doctors with residency spaces to take them.
A parallel private system would only siphon out a number of the already limited amount of doctors we have in the public system. A more "expedient" service would come at the cost of less expedient service for those who were unable to afford what the private industry wanted to charge.
In consumer goods and non-essentials, this doesn't matter. In health care, where if my neighbor can't afford fast enough treatment so he gets sick enough to become contagious and infect me? That matters.
Posted February 22, 2008 03:35 PM
Firstly,I am not saying that we should have an American type of health care. I don't know what form of privatization I could support but unless it's being discussed, I have no decision to make.
The main point I wanted to stress was in reference to spending ever more money on health care without seeing improvments. Hence the reference to past prime minister Paul Martin who said his 41 billion dollar health accord was the"deal of the decade" and during his campaign said it was a "fix for a generation". Yet here we are.
Secondly, I wanted to point out that anyone can promise more doctors every election. But the reality is that this unlikely to occur.
So we will continue to be stuck in this quagmire until we can start discussing how privatization can help us.
Posted February 22, 2008 01:36 PM
This fear of privatization is fuelled by misinformation and ignorance. The type of system he has described is not what is being advocated for.
At most, people are wanting a parallel system where they can pay for more expedient service, with the side-effect of relieving pressure on the public system.
The other aspect is a desire to allow a broader range of non-government run health facilities. Now this is limited to the doctors you visit outside of the hospitals (and yes, your family doc is an example of a private for-profit health service paid by the government). Why limit this and not allow privately run hospitals to operate and receive payment by the government?
Posted February 22, 2008 09:34 AM
Privatizing our health care system would not fix the current problems. A private health care system only transfers the cost burden from government down on to the individual users. This sounds great until you're unlucky enough to suffer from a serious illness.
Not only does a private system penalize people when they are at their most vulnerable, but it inevitably leads to poorer care for most while costing more for everyone involved.
Albertans are waking up to the fact that the profit margins in auto insurance are coming right out of their own wallets. If you think private auto insurance is expensive, just wait until you have to pay for private health insurance.
Posted February 21, 2008 02:17 PM