[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Zarley

- As a province, we are in the bottom half of OECD jurisdictions in terms of overall life expectancy at birth.

Would you mind linking your source? All the data I’ve been able to find has Alberta ranked 4th highest amongst provinces. We are below the national average but that is because the three provinces ahead of us(Ontario, BC and Quebec) make up such a large portion of the population.

- We have the 7th worst infant mortality rate among 34 jurisdictions.

According to this link you provided? https://public.tableau.com/profile/a...nalComparisons
We are ranked 7th after 6th placed Canada, so that means there are at least 6 other jurisdictions within Canada with worse outcomes. This might be one of the worst examples of cherry picking data I’ve ever read on this forum, where are the fear mongering police when you need them?

- This poor performance comes despite the 6th highest per capita total health spending (public and private) adjusted for purchasing power parity.

Do you mean amongst the provinces or amongst the 34 jurisdictions?

- Thanks to increases in operational spending by the current government, we now have the highest per capita healthcare spending of any province in the country.

There are a number of factors to consider when looking at why we have higher per capita costs. Our cost of living and competition with non-health care related jobs plays a role. As does the fact that AHS does things like subsidize private sector assisted living facilities.

The point is that we can build as many cancer centres as we want and hire more and more nurses, but we are not going to solve the structural issues with the public health bureaucracy. We need to be studying the approaches to public health used in places like Japan, France, NZ, and Australia which all have lower expenditures and better outcomes. I don't know what the answer is but it's certainly not carrying on with the status quo.

Not to nitpick but according to the data you provided NZ has higher rates of infant deaths.

What is your solution? If your solution is simply to add more private care options, that doesn’t address our cost issues. Most people(not saying you) seem to believe that reducing AHS wages is the go to option, but that doesn’t guarantee better health outcomes at all. If privatization is as efficient of a model as some claim it is then proponents of it should explain why privatized industries(like private education) that also have a public option still need public funding to operate.