Re: Provincial government's plan to offload underperforming hospitals from Alberta Health Services to third-party operators
Reforming health care: Undermining public health care in favour of promoting private health care (Covenant Health) is a very bad idea. Private health care in the U.S. is a failure. Americans owe over $200 billion in health-care debts to doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and the lawyers that defend them.
Private health care in America is a privilege, not a right like what we have in Canada. So why the push for private health? Answer: money.
Health care in America is a three trillion-plus cottage industry. It benefits the doctors, the hospitals, the nursing homes, the insurance companies (over 700 of them), the pharmaceutical companies and the lawyers who defend them.
The conservatives and the health-care lobby have successfully defeated any attempts to establish universal health care system (similar to ours) since 1948. Every year these same folks try to figure out ways to kill funding for Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare.
However, they will fund the Defence budget (now over $890 billion) without “batting an eye” but they will try to sabotage “socialized” medicine.
After all, “socialism” in America is associated with communism (that fear of communism goes back to the 1920s, 1930 and to the 1950s (The Red Scare; Senator Joseph McCarthy). Therefore, Canadians, New Zealanders, Australians, English, French, Germans and all the democratic countries in western Europe must be “commies” because (Heaven forbid) they all have universal (socialized) health care.
To get any idea about private health care just go to your local vet clinic to pay for your animal’s health care or visit the dental clinic to pay for your teeth. Or, imagine going to the emergency room at Oroville Hospital in Oroville, California like I did in January of 2011, and walking out the next day with a bill for $10,218. After a half-a-day in private health care, I was billed $10, 218! Fortunately, as a senior U.S. citizen, I was covered by Medicare Part A (hospitalization), and I “only” had to pay $1,682.59 “out-of-pocket."
Why was I in the hospital? My blood pressure had spiked so high that I had become disoriented and my brother had to take me to the hospital. Without Medicare or without medical insurance, I would have been “up the creek without a paddle”.
Now, imagine what health care will be like in the future if Premier Smith and the UCP are allowed to push privatization of health care upon us. Imagine losing your business, your farm, or your house to pay for hospital bills, doctor’s bills or for medicine. Think: Bankruptcy.
Just imagine what is was like for our parents and grandparents, prior to universal health care, going without medical treatment because they could not afford to pay for health care.
Just remember: Private health care is in the business of making money and it’s a privilege to have it whereas our universal health care is a “right”. Yes! It’s our right and we shouldn’t let any politician or political party take away that right from us!
We should not allow public money to be used to support Covenant Health. If people want private health care, they should pay for it out of their own pockets.
Unfortunately, we have a province committed to spending “our” public money supporting private businesses (like private schools and private energy companies).
What also concerns me about Convenant Healthh is that it “might” deny women access to abortions, it might deny access to MAID by terminally ill folks, or even deny access to health care for gay and transgender people.
Reminder: Slavery was made legal in America. Segregation/apartheid was made legal in America. Jim Crow laws were made legal in the southern states. “Black Codes” were legal in the South. “Sundown towns” were legal in many regions of America. Buying 'the pill' was illegal for a time. Buying condoms was illegal in some places. Killing black folks by the KKK was not a punishable offence. Read the story of a young black teenager (Emmett Till) murdered by the Klan on Aug. 28, 1955, see the movie Till or see the movie Mississippi Burning. Or visit the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.
Just because a government passes legislation doesn’t mean it’s right, morally or otherwise. Remember the story of Nelson Mandela in South Africa? See the movie Cry Freedom. Remember the Nazis passing laws against Jews in the 1930s? Remember the Spanish monarchs instituting the Inquisition to persecute Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians in 1492? They were all legal. Just remember.
George Thatcher,
Olds
