Ralph Klein "branding" Private Health Care as "Third Way" :: PEJ News :: Stories, Features, Opinion and Analysis

The speech was long on rebranding privitisation in health care as the Third Way but short on detail. In his address to the exclusive haunt of wealthy Calgarians, Klein said "I totally reject the view that there are only two ways to go. There is a different way to go. There is what we're going to call a third way."

In any other province in Canada a premier would not be anouncing a major initiative in public health policy at a business sponsored event. This is Alberta, and governments don't make decision's here without support of the business community.

Klein went on to say, "We'll be pushing back the boundaries of the Canada Health Act." He added that he would take any disputes with Ottawa to the new federal-provincial dispute panel.

The Alberta Premier has long been a proponent of privatising health care. One difference with Alberta vs other provinces (to Klein's credit) and the federal government, has been their willingness to be more up front about contracted or privatised health care. Thousands of day surgeries are carried out in this country in for-profit medical "clinics".

Governments have been using a strategy of squeezing the public health care system, rationing surgeries and then finding money to pay to decrease the backlog. Health authories then spend the money in private settings as they have been structurley limited in their capacity to deal with the needs of the system.

The third way is no new way. Ralph Klein maybe running to catch up with Gordon Campbell.  BC is contracting more and more health care services to private for-profit corporations, has entered into a new era of Public Private Partnerships in the operations of hospitals, well on the way to more privatisation in health care. BC is already well underway on the implementaion of the "Third Way".

Our health care system in Canada has been subjected to two major offences or difficulties in the past 10 years, the first being the federal Government's retreat from paying half the costs and the second being the abandonment of funding used to address the Social Determinants of Health.

The federal Government has only recently begun to return money to the health care system. Provinces and the federal government have reduced funding to programs that address the social determinants of health.  Housing programs have been slashed, welfare rates reduced, Child care support cut and the list goes on. All of these programs lead to healthier populations in the same way the investments made in delivering clean water years ago contributed to people living longer and healthier lives.

The Third Way, is the same way many governments have been going for some time now. It has done nothing to improve the system, while hiving off a bigger chunk of money that was previously available to the public system.

Watch for Alberta to introduce greater flexibility to local health authorities, directing them to seek private alternatives vs public solutions. All this will lead to control of the health care dollar being in the hands of CEO's of, dare I say it, American Health Care conglomerates.

Closing words to Premier Klein, "The path to a better health-care system is a third way, incorporating both public and private models"

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