Friends of Medicare warns of ‘American-style’ healthcare coming to Alberta

Galloway, however, tells Pattison Media that it “opens the floodgates” to private health services and insurance, and that once it is here, it will be difficult to change.

“We’re waiting on the regulations and the implementation of exactly how that’ll look, but no matter how they move forward, we think it’s a violation of the Canada Health Act, that it’s two-tiered healthcare, and that it’s bringing American healthcare into Alberta and into Canada, so we need to push back and say no before it’s put into place,” says Gallaway.

He believes that this will create a system where those who can afford to pay for private health coverage may see improved wait times, but that everyone else will be “left waiting longer or going without because they won’t be able to access care.”

Galloway explains, “We don’t double the workforce by splitting it into a two-tiered system, and we’re already struggling to have enough workers to keep our emergency rooms, to have enough family doctors, and so on. If people are paying for access, the rest of us are going to be left suffering.”

Bill 11 makes changes to the Alberta Health Care Insurance Act, which would allow employers to provide their workers access to private health insurance through work benefits, and also allow more private options for drug plans.

According to Gallaway, this will prompt the provincial government to “claw back” what it covers through the public system, meaning that Albertans will be expected to pay out of pocket for more services.

He says this has already been happening.

“They’ve delisted vision care, eye exams, they’ve raised the co-pays for the seniors’ drug plan, while kicking tens of thousands of people off that drug plan, the vaccines that people had to start paying out of pocket if they weren’t under a certain category. There’s been a whole bunch of examples of small things that are delisted or the fees have gone up.”

Gallaway refutes the government’s claims that Bill 11 aims to create European-style healthcare, and instead, pushes Alberta closer to what Americans have.

Medical debt is often cited as the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, as RetireGuide.com claims that medical expenses directly cause two-thirds of insolvency cases.

“They go into bankruptcy, or they die earlier, or we see those videos online now of doctors fighting with insurance companies, wanting to do a surgery and being denied at the last minute and haggling to get the coverage for the patient. I don’t think that’s the road we want to go down. I don’t think that’s what anyone likes,” says Gallaway.

Friends of Medicare has been advocating against the implementation of Bill 11 to the Alberta Government, and is encouraging people to speak with the MLAs about this issue.

The following statement was issued to Pattison Media by Maddison McKee, Press Secretary for Primary and Preventive Health Services:

” Friends of Medicare is a political advocacy group governed by the province’s public unions. They routinely spread misinformation and hyperbolic predictions; it’s misleading to cite them as if they were impartial or expert.

The talking points are always the same, they compare Alberta’s common-sense changes to cherry-picked facts from other countries and a theoretical version of Canadian medicare, not the real system that patients experience every day.

Obviously, every health care system is unique. However, we are bringing Alberta more in line with other top-performing health systems, including Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Australia. These countries all combine strong public funding with modern, flexible delivery models.

This debate is not actually about dual practice. It’s about whether we are willing to address long wait times, workforce shortages, and capacity challenges that patients experience every day. Maintaining the status quo won’t deliver more timely care, and Albertans deserve better.

We remain committed to upholding Alberta’s Public Health Care Guarantee; our priority is the public system, and we want to ensure that no one ever has to pay out of pocket for medically necessary care.

Dual practice does not violate the Canada Health Act. The Act is silent on private practice operating outside the public system, and opt-out and dual-practice models in Alberta and other provinces have never been found to breach it. At the same time, the province is strengthening the public system and improving access for all Albertans, while allowing limited additional choice for some physicians and patients—subject to strict conditions to protect publicly funded services.

Finally, the scope is narrow. Dual practice applies only to a limited range of scheduled surgeries. It does not apply to cancer care, other lifesaving treatments, or emergency services.”

by David Opinko

Friends of Medicare warns of ‘American-style’ healthcare coming to Alberta

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