It’s not right for politicians to undermine publicly-funded, evidence-based healthcare.
We don’t test for no reason. No test is perfect. And so doctors will order a test when the imperfect test can meaningfully inform subsequent decision-making, based on other pieces in the clinical picture.
I’m not sure how the system will manage medically unnecessary tests on many levels.
Let’s say some rich asshole, considering themselves an expert and wanting to take advantage of this anti-democratic system, pays for an MRI of their head with no doctor’s referral simply because they have a headache.
What priority is their scan given? Can they bump a medically necessary scan? Is it clearly communicated to the radiologist interpreting the scan that only a patient and not a healthcare provider deemed it necessary? Is the cranial MRI marked as medically unnecessary on any subsequent health records? (From a healthcare perspective, when one sees a cranial MRI done, they’re thinking something much more clinically relevant than a headache happened; and this stands to cause a lot of confusion and wasted time)
Also, diverting the system towards privatization is a huge abandonment of trying to improve our public system. Shame on the UCP!
This existed well before Friday. My doctor recommended I pay to get a quicker scan last year. I’m not sure of the exact details since I didn’t do it.
I won’t say I’m not tight with cash, which factored into the decision, but I also really hate this fall into private health care and don’t want to support that. I was told it would be about $400 for a private MRI.
Yes, before you could pay to have a private imaging center do an MRI. But, you were required to have a referral from a doctor. The difference is that as of Friday the private clinics are no longer required to only give MRIs to people that have a referral from a doctor.
Let’s replace the headline.
“Rich Albertans can get whatever medical tests they want, at the expense of basic healthcare for others.”
“Alberta abandons Canada Healthcare principles, Federal government does nothing to stop them.”
Healthcare is provincial.
“American wanna be MAGA hicks once again get fucked by their voting decisions”
Incredible how everything immediately gets blamed on Ottawa when Albertans score an own goal.
Provincial, pulling from federal funding with rules that explicitly prohibit privatization, but sure. Let’s just ignore the facts.
The death knell for public health care in Canada. Having grown up in Alberta, the public system saved lives in my immediate family. Maybe even mine.
And very little to no protesting. Nobody fucking cares.
This is why Alberta is a drive by province.
I know I’d GTFO if I ever lost the career I have here. Sure as shit won’t retire here.
Manitoba and BC are good places to retire!
Manitoba is where the majority of extended family lives so that’s where I’d go I figure. Wab Kinew won’t be leader in 29 years from now but hopefully NDP still is :p
Watch albertans maintain their diehard majority support for the UCP.
Not if I can fucking help it.
The last federal election was about the threat to Canadian sovereignty. 92% of Alberta seats went PC.
That “diehard majority” was a few thousand votes in the most recent election. The one before that, they actually weren’t the majority - Alberta had an NDP government.
Insisting that Alberta is eternally UCP will only help make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
they are busy gerrymandering the new district borders so that they won’t need the majority vote to stay in government.
Gerrymandering can push the needle but it can’t hold back the tide. It can actually backfire if the projections that the gerrymanderers were working with turn out to be inaccurate, since it’s specifically “betting” on a particular arrangement of votes.
It’s also not happening yet. The party voted for it and is now trying to gerrymander for sure, but the courts do not favour the UCP on this matter saying if challenged it’d be likely the UCP loses marking it unconstitutional. Especially with the separatist PsyOP going on I don’t get the impression the currently employed judges like UCP very much given their comments lately.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/electoral-boundary-commission-dallas-miller-9.7143937
How many non PC/UCP governments has Alberta elected since 1965?
One.
Pretty specific cutoff date there. Look at the full history of elections in Alberta, there was a run of PC governments in that specific window that you’ve conveniently specified but before that the political landscape was completely different. And in recent history too, it’s unstable.
But if you want to write the province off and permanently leave it to conservatives, that’s a choice I guess.
$750 with insurance where I live.
Im always torn by the privatization, because yah its going to create a 2 tiered system. But also, now I can actually look at something that needs to be looked at when the list is 3 years long any other way? Sign me the fuck up, here’s 2 grand. Show me the fucking problem now and we can fix it hopefully.
Long term, it’s not going to create a two tier system. It’s going to drain limited resources from the public system until it fails, and then all we have left is profit driven healthcare that provides worse care than what we were getting for everyone except the richest.
I understand this, but that means those who can’t throw two grand at the problem end up suffering or dead.
Two-tier healthcare inherently means that rich people are more deserving of life.
spitballing, but perhaps a legislated cap at msp+10%. gives a profit over socialized health care but isn’t unreachable for the everyman.
haven’t thought this through at all, so any ramifications are outside scope of this drunken suggestion. i’d appreciate critiques
Government like the ones in Alberta are actively and very intentionally working to privatize health care so they would never go for this.
well of course, i’d much prefer globalized universal health care. unfortunately i don’t see that as an option, so give me governmental price +10% as a legislated limit on privatized.
in a perfect world we’d see socialized glp-1’s and socialized safe use sites. hell if i could buy clean coke from a federal store i would.
unfortunately that’s not the world we live in so i’m limited to imagining November 5th happening to every western government and aspiring freedmen until then.
EDIT: forgive any rambling, am on vacay and hammered
