Mason: proof of PC plan to privatize healthcare
October 24, 2011
Alberta’s NDP Opposition leader Brian Mason revealed details showing the new health minister plans to proceed with privatizing healthcare, in a document of confidential advice to the minister released today.
“This is proof that the Tories have a blueprint to undermine our public health system. It describes such plans as new health premiums, spending accounts, and government-facilitated queue jumping,” Mason says. “By appointing Fred Horne as minister of health, Premier Redford proves the government is still determined to privatize our health care.”
The document, a May 2010 report to then health minister Gene Zwozdesky, details several plans that invite privatization and reductions in public services. Among them are moves to allow private health insurance, reviewing which publicly-funded services can be delivered privately, allowing doctors to work in the private and public systems at the same time, open the way for health premiums, co-payment and spending accounts, and strategic shipment of patients out of province and out of country for services.
“Horne’s public consultations were a PR fraud that ignored public input, replacing it with points from the same backroom privatization playbook we’ve previously uncovered in a presentation to the government caucus,” Mason says. “There’s a hidden agenda at work, and Fred Horne is in the driver’s seat. It relies on manipulating public opinion to hide controversial privatization policies.”
Attached documents:
- May 2010 minister’s report
- March 2008 letter from Ron Liepert instructing an assistant on future plans for health system
The Liepert letter shows the beginnings of ideas around delisting services and private insurance that re-appear in the May 2010 document.