In classic Friday afternoon bad-news dump, UCP moves to make COVID vaccines expensive and hard to find

In a classic Friday afternoon bad-news dump, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party Government announced a scheme to make seniors pay “the full costs” for restricted supplies of COVID-19 vaccines.

When the UCP’s RFK-Jr.-inspired policy is implemented in mid-August, it will be easier to get ripped on legal marijuana in this province than it will be to find a life-saving shot of COVID vaccine.

It will probably be cheaper, too. We don’t yet know what the government intends to charge for the jab. What the market will bear, presumably, if they stick to their hard-right ideology. The government’s press release hints it could be as much as $110 per dose. In the United States, long obviously Premier Smith’s model for health care policy, covid vaccinations can cost $200 US or more, plus administration fees. 

The Friday the 13^th news release from the office of Adriana LaGrange, who now bears the Orwellian title of Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services, is headlined “a new approach to COVID-19 immunizations.”

Actually, it’s not that new. As a right-wing radio talk show host, Premier Smith was a determined vaccine skeptic and quack COVID cure enthusiast long before she returned to politics with the support of UCP extremists who objected to former premier Jason Kenney’s half-hearted commitment to pandemic public health. Indeed, her over-the-top enthusiasm may have been what led to her being pushed out of her job at CHQR in Calgary in 2021.

In addition, a deeply flawed paper Ms. Smith had published the same year by the right-tilting School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary called for the introduction of health care user fees and co-pays, plus de-listing of services, precisely what we are seeing today. “Once people get used to the concept of paying out of pocket for more things themselves then we can change the conversation on health care,” she wrote. 

Ms. LaGrange, of course, has been happy throughout her political career to implement both UCP premiers’ worst ideas as policy, and that has obviously not changed despite her recent demotion from health minister. 

Even so, you would have thought the UCP strategic brain trust would have hesitated before announcing a policy like this in the midst of a province-wide measles epidemic in which reported cases have reached roughly 75 per cent of the number of reported cases in the entire United States!

But apparently not. Anything must seem better to the folks in the Premier’s Office than watching social media reels of Ms. Smith whining “you’re not being very respectful” while being lambasted by members of her own party’s rural base in Fort Macleod while trying to defend the government’s plan to permit a deeply unpopular open-pit coal mine on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies. 

UCP deep thinkers may have concluded the vaccine-suppression policy outlined in the announcement could win back some MAGA votes in the June 23 by-election in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills by-election, where a candidate from the openly separatist Republican Party of Alberta is breathing down the UCP standard-bearer’s neck. 

As the news release also makes clear, the government is trying to blame Ottawa’s post-pandemic vaccine procurement policy for the plan to dump the cost of COVID immunization on seniors and other Alberta residents. If the feds won’t pay, the province certainly isn’t going to, notwithstanding its jealously guarded jurisdiction over health care. 

The release also quotes Ms. LaGrange pointing to the high number of unused doses of COVID vaccine in Alberta – a direct result of the UCP Government’s own efforts to suppress demand for the vaccine. 

“By shifting to a targeted approach and introducing pre-ordering, we aim to better align supply with demand – ensuring we remain fiscally responsible while continuing to protect those at highest risk,” she said. She didn’t add, but might as well have, that the rest of you are on your own, and that the measures announced are designed to reduce demand even more.

Remember, this is a government whose idea of fiscal responsibility is spending $70 million on unusable kids’ pain medication from Turkey just to own the Libs in Ottawa. 

The news release also cites the controversial recent decision by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., probably the world’s most prominent anti-vaxxer, to stop recommending COVID immunization for pregnant women and healthy children south of the Medicine Line. This too is on-brand for the UCP. 

Today’s release says Alberta will provide COVID vaccines free of charge to residents of supportive living facilities, those on social programs, and those with underlying medical conditions. 

The rest of us will be required “to cover the full costs of the vaccine,” a phrase repeated in the release. Moreover, vaccines will be made harder to get. First, they will no longer be administered by community pharmacies, a system that has worked well to make immunization accessible. 

Instead, they will only be available through public health clinics – fewer, hard to find, inconvenient to get to, and likely to require long waits for appointments. 

Then, starting on Aug. 11, Albertans will need “to signal their intent to receive the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines by pre-ordering through the Alberta Vaccine Booking System. Following the pre-order, Albertans will receive a reminder notification via text message or email prompting them to book their immunization appointment in early October.”

The system, clearly, is intended to discourage vaccine use. This, needless to say, is nuts. But this is Danielle Smith’s Alberta. Some Albertans will die as a result.