Alberta's Third Way

A few weeks following BC's speech from the throne, which stated that the province would be examining alternative methods for health care delivery, Alberta has released its "Third Way" for health care. The 10 point plan outlines an overhaul of the Alberta system. The fact that private health care provision will be introduced for certain procedures is the key aspect of the plan, but what is gaining criticism is the fact that physicians and other health care professionals will be able to practice in both the public and the private systems, a practice that does not occur in most other jurisdictions with dual public/private provision.

The usual suspects: Friends of Medicare, the Alberta Federation of Labour and opposition NDP and Liberals, are not in favour of such a plan, arguing that the "Third Way" will steal professionals away from the public system. Same old rhetoric... However, the Liberals and NDP also argue that this will result in longer wait times. This, in my opinion, is the most bizarre argument put forth by those opposed to the introduction of private medicine. How will wait times increase exactly? I highly doubt that if physicians should leave the public system (which I'm not convinced they will) that wait times in the public system would automatically increase. Is the opposition forgetting that the burden on the public system would be lessened by a dual private option? I would hazard to guess that most people who can afford to pay for these procedures (namely cataract surgery and hip and knee replacements) would opt to have the procedure done as soon as possible, thus freeing up the wait times for those that cannot afford to pay - would this not mean that less doctors are required in the public system?

The introduction of the "Third Way" likely has implications for the Canada Health Act if these procedures can be considered medically necessary. I'm interested to see how the new Harper government approaches these reforms. I would imagine that the majority of the members of the new federal government actually support the reforms in principle, but are they willing to turn a blind eye when Harper promised the defend the Canada Health Act?

Other implications will present themselves for the rest of the provinces should these reforms go forward. The proposed system would be attractive to physicians, possibly luring them from other jurisdictions. Saskatchewan, the province that has lost the most physicians in recent years, might feel the repercussions of these changes the most. This has the potential to seriously hurt the Saskatchewan Health Care system if Lorne Calvert and his socialist cronies continue to support the status quo in the province.

While Klein was quoted yesterday as stating: "The Health System must change to survive, and all premiers agree on that." It's unfortunate that some premiers (namely Campbell and Klein) agree with that concept more than others, such as our own hapless provincial leader.