UCP’s health care privatization plan in Alberta
Posted on 04-02-2020
This is not new. Past conservative governments are attempted the same. The plan now is to fund from public money certain health services you can access for pay. At the same time cut government services in health care. The rationale is the same as always. It is ideologically driven and does not make any economic sense at all. Let’s look at it how does it work.
The inequality among Albertan’s is growing every day, just as it does everywhere else. This is what our current economic system produces. So, there are people who can afford things and there are people who can not. This is toppled with the ideological conservative “conviction” that government is bad. By default. You see, we don’t fund public health care enough, because the government does it inefficiently. It is inadequate, there are waiting lines, often long, in public health care and there are other malaises as well.
So, the solution is to cut further government provided health care services and open up private facilities. The people who can afford things but can not get services will and does exert pressure towards privatization. They are ready to pay to get the service. The rest of us, not so much, we will bear with the consequences of not having an adequate public health sector. What privatization really means is that it pits people against each other. We further divide them augmenting the gap between richer and poorer. We also pit doctors against each other. Those who work in private facilities earn more than in the public sector. “Smart” doctors will tend to go to the private sector. At the same time government provided health services will further lag behind for lack of funding. The pressure will grow to privatize further. You see, government is bad, private is good.
Conservatives, who tend to be people better off economically, do exert this pressure towards privatization and cut government spending. In a more rational society, we wouldn’t pit people against each other. We would treat them equally. Everybody. The “efficiency” of a health care system is measured by health issues attended. If they are not attended to, we are lacking resources. We are lacking health care facilities, doctors, nurses, etc. Every dollar spent on public health services is about treating people better. Governments don’t stash up profits. Private businesses do.
It is up to us, what kind of a society we want.