http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1458&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
[note reference to SDOH below]

Ralph Klein "branding" Private Health Care as "Third Way"

Ralph Klein, Alberta's premier and long time supporter of private health
care spoke to the Canadian Club in Calgary, where he delivered his long
awaited Health Care reform speech.

The speech was long on rebranding privitisation in health care as the Third
Way but short on detail. In his address to the exclusive haunt of wealthy
Calgarians, Klein said "I totally reject the view that there are only two
ways to go. There is a different way to go. There is what we're going to
call a third way."

In any other province in Canada a premier would not be anouncing a major
initiative in public health policy at a business sponsored event.  This is
Alberta, and governments don't make decision's here without support of the
business community.

Klein went on to say, "We'll be pushing back the boundaries of the Canada
Health Act." He added that he would take any disputes with Ottawa to the
new federal-provincial dispute panel.

The Alberta Premier has long been a proponent of privatising health care.
One difference with Alberta vs other provinces (to Klein's credit) and the
federal government, has been their willingness to be more up front about
contracted or privatised health care.  Thousands of day surgeries are
carried out in this country in for-profit medical "clinics".

Governments have been using a strategy of squeezing the public health care
system, rationing surgeries and then finding money to pay to decrease the
backlog.  Health authories then spend the money in private settings as they
have been structurley limited in their capacity to deal with the needs of
the system.

The third way is no new way.  Ralph Klein maybe running to catch up with
Gordon Campbell.  BC is contracting more and more health care services to
private for-profit corporations, has entered into a new era of Public
Private Partnerships in the operations of hospitals, well on the way to
more privatisation in health care.  BC is already well underway on the
implementaion of the "Third Way".

Our health care system in Canada has been subjected to two major offences
or difficulties in the past 10 years, the first being the federal
Government's retreat from paying half the costs and the second being the
abandonment of funding used to address the Social Determinants of Health.

The federal Government has only recently begun to return money to the
health care system.  Provinces and the federal government have reduced
funding to programs that address the social determinants of health.
Housing programs have been slashed, welfare rates reduced,  Child care
support cut and the list goes on.  All of these programs lead to healthier
populations in the same way the investments made in delivering clean water
years ago contributed to people living longer and healthier lives.

The Third Way, is the same way many governments have been going for some
time now.  It has done nothing to improve the system, while hiving off a
bigger chunk of money that was previously available to the public system.

Watch for Alberta to introduce greater flexibility to local health
authorities, directing them to seek private alternatives vs public
solutions.  All this will lead to control of the health care dollar being
in the hands of CEO's of, dare I say it, American Health Care
conglomerates.

Closing words to Premier Klein, "The path to a better health-care system is
a third way, incorporating both public and private models"

Note:
Rick Barnes is a contributing editor to PEJ News

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