Danielle Smith announces another step down the rocky road to U.S.-style health care

Just to give us something to think about while we await the Speech from the Throne this afternoon, Premier Danielle Smith yesterday announced Albertans will soon have the opportunity to take another step down the rocky road to U.S.-style health care.
 
Promising “faster access to preventative care” and “patient autonomy for Albertans” – via a cheerful five-minute video instead of a news conference with a place for reporters to ask inconvenient questions – the premier gushed about how letting Albertans pay up front for medical tests not recommended by physicians “we’re empowering people to take control of their care and reducing wait times across the system.”
 
In other words, the government’s news release explained, “physician-recommended tests will continue to be fully covered and prioritized in all facilities, public or private, across the province.” But “if a privately purchased test reveals a significant or critical condition, the out-of-pocket cost will be reimbursed, ensuring no Albertan pays for a medically necessary test.”
 
Well, I guess that’s one way to make sure that you can still get a blood test, MRI, CT scan or ultrasound even if you can’t find a doctor – a grave government-policy-created problem in the health care system that no Canadian government seems to have been able to come up with another policy to solve.
 
And by the sound of the pitch in the video, it’s going to be up to you from here on to get a diagnostic test, because chances are good you don’t have a family doc or a chance ever to find one. And if the first couple of tests don’t find anything, well, too bad for you!
 
The news release follows up with a lot of cheerful folderol about how medical screening technology is improving and might improve even more in the future, which is largely true but not necessarily relevant to the complexities of providing access to medical tests for people who need them.
 
To do that, the government’s priority would have to be running a modern health care system not breaking it up and privatizing it.
 
Ms. Smith – who appears in the video with her seldom-seen sidekick Primary and Preventative Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange – implies this will result in “new private preventative health clinics” being built, which might be true, and assures us that doctor-recommended tests will be prioritized.
 
Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we? Ms. LaGrange also promised in the video that “it means the government will save massive amounts of tax dollars,” which is almost certainly not true.
 
As Alberta Friends of Medicare Executive Director Chris Gallaway said in a news release yesterday, “every time this government announces another new privatization scheme they claim it will save money and increase access to care. But Albertans have seen over and over that these schemes never actually pan out as promised, and instead reduce public capacity, worsen wait times for patients, and ultimately cost us more.”
 
“To think that permitting Albertans with unaddressed health needs and money to spare, to access potentially unnecessary diagnostic tests, will somehow reduce our wait times is completely ludicrous,” he said.
 
He pointed out that private diagnostic services have already put pressure on publicly delivered services and suggested this will likely make it worse.
 
One also wonders how soon will it be before the UCP stops paying for doctor-ordered tests if they don’t identify a treatable condition? Mark my words, thius will be along sooner or later if the UCP remains in power.
 
Before she was premier, Ms. Smith called for the introduction of fees and co-pays to medical care. Despite her claim that the meaningless “Public Health Guarantee” remains in operation, she is delivering on that ideological project.
 
This policy will require legislative change, and it was unclear from yesterday’s announcement whether that will come in the legislative session that starts this afternoon, or later.