The UCP government’s plan to create a new “activity-based” model for the funding of hospital surgeries represents a major upheaval of the multi-billion dollar Alberta health-care system.
Coming at a time when the province is faced with numerous ongoing challenges – including the major economic threats created by the U.S. tariff war – the decision to move forward with this major shake-up right now seems ill-timed.
Premier Smith says the new model will reduce costs by fostering competition among public providers and those that carry out publicly-funded procedures in private clinics.
“The old top-down approach offers no incentive to do more for patients and limits our ability to direct dollars where they can get the best results," Smith said.
The new model will see government funding follow the patient, making health care more efficient, lowering wait times, providing more transparency and attracting more surgeons to the province, she said.
Critics say the model represents a significant threat to universal health care in Alberta.
“Rather than getting to work addressing much-needed capacity and workforce planning for public health care, the premier is blowing things up even further with a plan to use public money to accelerate health care privatization,” says Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare.
The plan is an “ideological strategy designed to make it easier to dismantle universal public services and turn them over for private profit.”
Official Opposition NDP health critic Sarah Hoffman said while the publicly funded health-care system needs to be efficient, it shouldn’t be turned over to for-profit companies.
“Patients should be the priority, not profit margins for corporations,” said Hoffman.
A major shake-up in the way surgeries are funded in rural and urban Alberta is something that should rightly garner close and detailed taxpayer interest and scrutiny.
Unfortunately, having it take place at the same time the province is faced with challenges on several fronts, including being swept up in the ongoing U.S. tariff war, probably means it won’t receive the full public attention it deserves.
Dan Singleton is an editor with the Albertan.
