With its latest medical lab privatization scheme in a shambles, Premier Danielle Smith’s market-fundamentalist government has turned to the public sector in a desperate bid to keep the system from collapsing in Calgary, Alberta’s largest city. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Alberta Newsroom/Flickr). Or, to put it more colourfully, as
Continue readingTag: Public Health Care
Alberta Politics: Calgary medical clinic tells patients they’ll need to pay up to $4,800 a year for timely access to physician
Since the Alberta government has the power to outlaw fees like those about to be charged by a Calgary medical clinic for patients to get timely access to their physician, it’ll have to exercise it if Premier Danielle Smith wants anyone to believe her election claim no Albertan would ever
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Danielle Smith takes UCP leadership campaign down a dark, Trumpian road with her conspiracy theory about AHS
The United Conservative Party leadership campaign took a dark Trumpian turn Monday when candidate Danielle Smith got a big cheer from her supporters at a rally in Airdrie for accusing Alberta Health Services of deliberately sabotaging the Kenney Government during the pandemic by falsely claiming the system was near collapse
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Kenney Government seeks ‘a unicorn’ to solve health care crisis – what it needs is more nurses
There was a whiff of desperation in the air at Jason Kenney’s health care news conference yesterday morning, which had been touted in advance to journalists as “an update on priority work to build health system capacity and add more critical care beds for Albertans.” Health Minister Jason Copping at
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Anonymous shutterbug snaps Jason Kenney and cabinet insiders breaking pandemic rules at boozy Sky Palace patio table
When Jason Kenney was busted yesterday for breaking his own pandemic rules the night before with a group of United Conservative Party cabinet heavyweights and a couple of guests during a boozy rooftop dinner at the notorious Sky Palace in Edmonton, one wag commented that these are tough times for
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premier Jason Kenney, in isolation, blows off criticism of the lackadaisical UCP approach to COVID-19 restrictions as ‘political pressure’
It’s not very reassuring to learn Alberta Premier Jason Kenney treats calls for stricter measures to control resurgent COVID-19 infections as “political pressure.” But yesterday, after Alberta on Wednesday surpassed 400 new cases in a single day for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, Mr. Kenney did just
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thanks to a public-spirited leaker, a risky health-care privatization scheme is exposed
Panicky sounding United Conservative Party “issues managers” were frantically insisting yesterday everything is copacetic and above board with secret plans to build a $200-million private orthopedic surgical hospital in Edmonton. No way will this result in two-tier health care, they contended, often shrilly calling anyone who suggested otherwise a liar,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canada’s universal single-payer health care system is our best vaccination against the neoliberal virus
Who would have thought a decade ago, or even six months back, that Canada’s chances of surviving as a unified country would be better than those of the United States? The thought the mighty United States of America — e pluribus unum, and all that — could be on the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: With coronavirus chaos south of the line, brace yourself for some of it to come to our way in Canada
U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s incompetent and ideologically driven response to the international coronavirus crisis poses a serious national security threat to Canada. Can we do anything about it? Say, closing the border to non-Canadian travellers from the United States, as Russia sealed its border with China in the first
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Linda Silas, president of Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, announces bid to lead Canadian Labour Congress
Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions representing 200,000 nurses across Canada, formally announced today she will seek the presidency of the Canadian Labour Congress. This doesn’t come as a thunderbolt out of the blue. Ms. Silas has been pondering a run for the leadership the CLC
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Regardless of Tyler Shandro’s promises, private clinics won’t shorten surgical wait times — they’ll make them longer
Using private medical clinics to remedy long wait times for surgeries in Alberta’s public health care system, as the United Conservative Party Government says it expects to do, is about as likely to work as treating iron-poor blood by attaching blood-sucking leeches to patients’ arms and legs. That is to
Continue readingAlberta Politics: NDP governments’ approaches to health care funding characterized by fiscal prudence, new study says
Who knew? The facts don’t support the myth that New Democratic Party governments always try to break the bank with health care spending! Just as NDP governments have a better fiscal record than all other Canadian political parties that have formed governments, a new study by the Edmonton-based Parkland Institute
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Stephen Mandel, past his best-before date but still politically sexy to media, declares Alberta Party leadership bid
PHOTOS: Stephen Mandel makes his Alberta Party leadership campaign announcement yesterday in Edmonton (Photo: Twitter). Below: Mr. Mandel back in the day with premier Jim Prentice, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, former Alberta Party leader Greg Clark, and United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney. Stephen Mandel’s political strategists would like you
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lack of information and weak enforcement let private health care clinics fudge public-private health-care line
PHOTO: Parkland Institute researcher Dr. Rebecca Graff-McRae. Below: The cover of the Parkland Institute Report, Blurred Lines, Private Membership Clinics and Public Health Care. It doesn’t exactly come as a surprise that so-called “private membership health care clinics” in Alberta have been fudging the line between public and private health
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post: Where’s the evidence for a health care sustainability crisis in Canada?
PHOTOS: Well, that’s one way to “bend the cost curve” … premier Ralph Klein’s way. The old Calgary General Hospital begins to fall an instant after the dynamite was triggered on Oct. 4, 1998, the Klein PC Government’s approach to health care infrastructure. Within seconds, Calgary’s only downtown hospital had
Continue readingAlberta Politics: You’re in for it now, Canada! Wildrose has a plan to make you love pipelines … or else!
PHOTOS: Some of the 2,000 or so Albertans who turned up in defence of their pensions in minus-30 weather on March 2, 2014. Turns out a lot of them voted, too. Below: Pipelines! Love ’em or lose your allowance! Have you got that, Canada? Get ready, Canada! If there’s ever
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Sonic privatization mystery: what were the Tories thinking?
PHOTOS: More medical lab techs examining specimens, still not illustrated exactly as they’re likely to appear nowadays. Below: Progressive Conservative health ministers Gary Mar, Iris Evans, Stephen Mandel and Fred Horne, every one a would-be privatizer and every one in a picture personally snapped by your blogger. Viewed with 20/20
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Notley Government channels Lougheed to protect Alberta jobs and services, dumps medical lab privatization ‘experiment’
PHOTOS: Medical lab techs examine a specimen, perhaps appearing not exactly as illustrated nowadays. Below: Alberta NDP Health Minister Sarah Hoffman, former PC health minister Stephen Mandel, Alberta Health Services CEO Vickie Kaminski and long-ago Conservative premier Peter Lougheed. In a bombshell move reminiscent of Peter Lougheed’s 1974 takeover of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Medical transport is an essential service, and properly so – it’s time to start treating it like one
PHOTOS: Medical air transport – an essential service too important to be left to private insurers and their ilk. Below: Amy and Amelia Savill (CTV News) and Alberta Health spokesperson Timothy Wilson (Linkedin). So now we need to buy medical-travel insurance when we travel inside Canada? Who knew? Certainly not
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Got trouble with ‘overbearing urban planners’? The Manning Centre wants to help!
A civic election all-candidates’ meeting in Calgary. “Why don’t we pass the time with a game of solitaire?” Actual Manning Centre supported candidates may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Manning Centre namesake Preston Manning; Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi; Calgary developer Cal Wenzel (CTV photo). If on Oct. 21 the
Continue reading