Healthcare is the greatest budgetary expense. Recent events have shown how vulnerable the system is to demand fluctuations on it.
Not only have physicians been upset that there is no more money in the public purse, the government is fiscally unable to spend more toward their billing fees. Patients are limited to treatment options as doctors threaten to leave.
Physicians should be allowed to accept/ take on more responsibility of supplying care to patients on a private fee for service that each feels will allow their practices to remain solvent and grow in scope (hybrid system).
Patients will have a choice to choose public or private service. If Healthcare insurance is available and legal, patients can divert themselves from public waitlist to the benefit of all patients.
People using Private Tier System (allowing Private Hospital facilities similar to the Non-Hospital Surgical Facilities already existing) would effectively pay a user tax (fee for service) shifting some burden from the public tax revenue to private payments. This would also help to keep Medical Tourism dollars in Alberta.
This could help the economy recover more efficiently by creating choices, for both physicians and patients, in time and public costs to the Public Health System. The economic benefit to government and the society is a health budget that will not grow excessively for Public Provincial Healthcare that in itself delays accessibility.
UCP Popularity Sinks To A New Low
If you listen to some recent polls, (video by Ken Chapman of ReBoot Alberta) it’s easy to see there is a lot of citizens who aren’t happy with new policies that weren’t in the UCP election campaign. The text above is policy 11 of the 2020 UCP AGM Policy And Governance Resolutions. You can read all the new policies below:
Patients are limited to treatment options as doctors threaten to leave. That much is true, but it’s the UCP government driving them out of the province from all the government cutbacks and demands.
Kim Siever said the AMA announced that 400 clinics in Alberta are laying off support staff or considering closing. He’s keeping a list of the closures. Alberta Minister of Health Tyler Shandro said he would just recruit some more, but the terms being offered to healthcare professionals isn’t favourable.
A lot of people are fleeing the province. Others, who received CERB payments from the federal government don’t want to go back to their jobs that only pays half as much, with a constant threat of catching the coronavirus.
It seems Alberta will have to learn that if you treat people poorly, they won’t want to stick around and work for you.
I’ve heard Mr. Siever keeps this list updated, so you might want to bookmark it.
A UCP MLA is facing criticism after he suggested people receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit were using the funds for Cheezies, cartoons and illegal drugs.
The word “Cheezies” trended on Twitter in Alberta after video of Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland UCP MLA Shane Getson was posted by the Alberta NDP Tuesday.
At a recent town hall meeting, Getson suggested some people are abusing the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
Getson said the remarks in response to concerns raised by a local business owner about being unable to hire workers because of the payments.
“And I’m going why not?” Getson said. “Well, ’cause they make more on CERB eating Cheezies and watching cartoons, I guess.”
Alberta is in desperate need of economically viable energy construction projects.
Clean energy sources, such as solar and wind, have absolutely cratered in price over the past decade. Prices for on-shore wind have come down 70 per cent and prices for photovoltaic solar have come down 90 per cent, both compared to 2010. Low wind prices now make it the lowest cost source of new electricity in Alberta, as of 2018, shown by the Canadian Energy Research Institute. Canada has not traditionally been a hot spot for solar projects but low prices have allowed new solar projects to smash through predictions for installs. In 2019, the Alberta Electric System Operator predicted that roughly 500 megawatts (MW) of solar would take until 2040 to be installed. Now, in 2020, there is currently already more than 500MW of unsubsidized solar under construction or operating in Alberta, with 84MW already active. Clean energy has become shockingly cost effective and is arriving at scales decades ahead of predictions.
In looking to kickstart our economy in a post-COVID world, we need to follow the market and think about future risks to see where our investment can have the best bang for our buck. The market is showing us that this is in clean-energy projects. Even better, the domestic and global movement for climate action shows us that these projects are not risky and will not face the severe legal and social headwinds that other energy projects have faced over the past two decades.
A 2019 poll by Abacus Data found that 81 per cent of Canadians, and a whopping 75 per cent of Albertans, support transitioning clean energy. Even during the tough economic times Alberta has faced since 2014, international investment has continued to flow into clean-energy projects in Alberta and the public is overwhelmingly interested in accelerating this trend.
Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash. NREL researcher discuss panel orientation and spacing. Working with teams from UMass Clean Energy Extension and Hyperion on a photovoltaic dual-use research project at the UMass Crop Animal Research and Education Center in South Deerfield, MA. They are researching simultaneously growing crops under PV Arrays while producing electricity from the panels. The project is part of the DOE InSPIRE project seeking to improve the environmental compatibility and mutual benefits of solar development with agriculture and native landscapes.
But if solar and wind are already so economical, what more can the government do to help the projects? We need to put the pedal to the floor and simplify financing for clean energy. Wind and solar projects are still relatively new in the financing world and the contract world is still catching up to the technological progress. In the 2014 report, Alberta’s future energy mix: exploring the potential for renewables, KMPG found that the price uncertainty found in Alberta’s market made financing solar, wind, and gas projects difficult. The AESO previously had a program called the Renewable Electricity Program (REP) which provided price certainty for renewable projects to simplify project financing. The contract prices were records for North America, as low as 3.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. The REP brought in roughly $2 billion in project investment, such as the Whitla project near Medicine Hat and the Riverview Wind project near Pincher Creek. Jason Kenney and the UCP cut this program in 2019.
There is an additional $2 billion worth of clean-energy projects in the pipeline in Alberta and reviving the REP can resume the speedy activation of these projects, bringing construction jobs with them. The REP’s mandate should also be expanded to include all clean-energy projects, such as carbon capture installation on existing gas plants, emerging small nuclear schemes, or geothermal wells.
Unfortunately, the ideological blinders on both the UCP and NDP leave them to miss these investment opportunities that we need so badly in our province. The UCP is allergic to any action that acknowledges the need for climate action, and the NDP is overly picky in limiting their focus only on renewable energy, instead of all forms of clean energy.
The Alberta Party shuns ideology and tries to be radically reasonable. It is extremely reasonable to see that clean-energy projects are a good deal now, and going forward, and that they have overwhelming public support. An Alberta Party government will seek out all clean-energy projects and accelerate their development in order to bring as many private sector construction projects into Alberta as soon as possible. We cannot afford to do any less.
Robert Tremblay is Associate Shadow Minister – Natural Gas and Renewable Energy and president of the Calgary-Currie Constituency Association for the Alberta Party.
Alberta Minister of Health Tyler Shandro speaks during a press conference in Calgary on May 29, 2020. The Alberta government is proposing legislation to accelerate approvals of private clinics in order to get more surgeries done. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
These changes risk undermining the public health-care system, increasing costs and decreasing quality. Media reports about a proposed private surgical facility suggest that the government may be putting profits over the public good in implementing the reforms.
Corporatization of health delivery
The legislative changes allow corporations to make financial arrangements with the government to provide health services, and to contract with physicians to deliver those services.
This is a departure from the current system in which only physicians (either directly or through their professional corporations) could bill the government for providing health services. Unlike physicians, who must place the interests of their patients above their own personal and financial interests, corporations owe financial obligations to their shareholders that may conflict with the interests of patients.
Privatization of health delivery
With the expansion of private delivery, a larger variety of surgical procedures will be performed in private clinics. (Unsplash/National Cancer Institute)
The new legislation also facilitates the private delivery of publicly funded surgeries. Although some services are already delivered privately (most commonly cataract surgery), many more surgeries and a larger variety of procedures will now be performed in private, for-profit, facilities.
The government’s stated rationale for increased private delivery is to reduce wait times. This claim runs contrary to evidence that indicates that reallocating finite health professional hours to the private system increases wait times in the public system.
Because private facilities generally prefer healthier patients with less complex medical needs, those with more complex needs will be left waiting longer for care in public hospitals. Recruiting additional staff to address these issues would be difficult, given the government’s strained relationship with physicians.
Centralization of government control
Perhaps in a bid to minimize opposition to its controversial reforms, the government is also asserting control over key health institutions. For example, the new legislation shrinks the responsibilities of Alberta Health Services (AHS), the entity responsible for contracting with private providers, and allows the government to impose an accountability framework on AHS.
View of the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on March 28, 2014. A recent proposal by the Alberta government could increase its control over institutions that regulate health professionals. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
The government recently circulated a proposal that could increase its control over the key functions of institutions that regulate health professionals. Because one of these institutions, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, is responsible for accrediting and setting standards for private surgical facilities, the proposal could be a way of influencing that process.
This facility is likely to benefit from public subsidies. For example, if procedures performed in private facilities result in serious complications, or if patients require readmission to hospital, public hospitals will likely be responsible for treating these patients.
In addition, acquiring land and constructing the facility will require public investment, whether by way of direct funds, tax credits or by allowing the facility to recoup its costs through service contracts negotiated with the government. Furthermore, the investors are reportedly insisting on contractual terms that will make their contract with the government expensive to cancel and binding on future governments, placing financial risks on taxpayers.
There are also transparency problems with the project. Lobbyists had access to high-level government officials, raising concerns that lobbying efforts rather than public interest will influence who receives private contracts, the terms of those contracts and how these facilities will be regulated.
Recent reforms embracing the corporatization and privatization of health services undermine the public health-care system and risk prioritizing profits over patients and taxpayers. However, challenges to public health care are not limited to Alberta.
Signed July 7 by top bureaucrats in Ottawa and Edmonton, it cuts funding by at least 25 per cent. The budget has been cut to no more than $44 million this year. It was $58 million last year and $60 million in 2018.
The deal says no fieldwork is to be done on the main branch of the Athabasca River. That means the program won’t fund monitoring downstream of the oilsands even as the province considers proposals to allow the water from oilsands tailings ponds to be released into the river.
The deal also says there’ll be no field studies on wetlands, fish or insects.
A pilot project gauging the risks posed by tailings ponds has been dropped. Water quality assessment in Wood Buffalo National Park — part of a response to international concerns about environmental degradation at the UNESCO World Heritage Site — is gone.
Healthcare is the greatest budgetary expense. Recent events have shown how vulnerable the system is to demand fluctuations on it.
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Kim Siever said the AMA announced that 400 clinics in Alberta are laying off support staff or considering closing. He’s keeping a list of the closures. Alberta Minister of Health Tyler Shandro said he would just recruit some more, but the terms being offered to healthcare professionals isn’t favourable. 
