Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Fuzz]

In a mandate letter to the premier's new Forestry, Parks and Tourism Minister Todd Loewen, she asked him to talk to federal counterparts to ensure all of the fees generated from Alberta national parks remain in the province so the revenue can be reinvested in infrastructure in Alberta.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...655795?cmp=rss

Smith picking more petty pointless fights.

[surferguy]

Hey Yoho let’s get rid of Universal Health care… then when you have a aneurysm, yelling at somebody for wearing a mask, you too can go bankrupt. Enjoy living the rest of your life as one of the poor people you despise so much.

Also change your Avatar, you are an embarrassment to the surfing community.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

BC privatized lots of support staff to save money and they just ended it as the savings were small but the headaches big

This is the one thing I will never understand, we are supposed to save money by adding a for profit layer to the system. It seems like fantasy and magical thinking to me.

I understand that government spending comes with a lot of bloat and problems. But throwing money at wealthy investors isn't the way to address the issue, it's just another place for that government bloat to fail us

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Wages were cut almost in half and pensions lost, which sounds like it should be a savings. However, after a few years the contracts were close to the same cost due to fewer bidders on the contracts as they couldn't find labour for that cheap

I've been friends for a long time with a family where the parents are immigrants who worked in janitorial at the hospital. I wouldn't say my impression is that they were overpaid and underworked.

I'm a pretty free market guy, but I don't think trying to save small amounts of money by lowering wages at the very bottom of the system is likely to make any material difference and it will really hurt those people.

If it turns out we can have one 300k/year administrator instead of a multi-person 300k/year each board then great. But trying to squeeze the folks at $18/hr down to $16.50 (or whatever the exact numbers are) doesn't seem like the way to go to me. It probably won't work and in the mean time will cause a lot of pain to those least able to deal with it.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by surferguy

Hey Yoho let’s get rid of Universal Health care… then when you have a aneurysm, yelling at somebody for wearing a mask, you too can go bankrupt. Enjoy living the rest of your life as one of the poor people you despise so much.

Also change your Avatar, you are an embarrassment to the surfing community.

I’m pretty sure he is poor, just one of the self-loathing types that blames everyone else (including the government) for his problems. He’s a Walmart greeter.

[dsavillian]

Originally Posted by Dynamic

Forgive my ignorance but who is Dusty Rose? From the looks of his followers he is some loser oil baron of some sort.

People who spew this polarizing garbage need to be shot into the sun. If you look at Canadian universal healthcare as a failure and "the worst" you are literally telling the world that you know nothing.

this tweet tells you everything you need to know about their point of view.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1593999853209604099

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by dsavillian

this tweet tells you everything you need to know about their point of view.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1593999853209604099

So fataing dumb. It's not sub-par. It's par. You're not more important and you don't have more worth as a human being because luck, timing and circumstances allowed you to have more money than the average.

[Ozy_Flame]

Well then. Good luck with that.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1594019020629577729

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sliver

So fataing dumb. It's not sub-par. It's par. You're not more important and you don't have more worth as a human being because luck, timing and circumstances allowed you to have more money than the average.

We also have access to a private system for essentially everything but emergency care. If you want to pay to jump the queue there are many ways you can do and still transfer your recovery costs to the public system.

If you want knee surgery you can go get a knee surgery.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I've been friends for a long time with a family where the parents are immigrants who worked in janitorial at the hospital. I wouldn't say my impression is that they were overpaid and underworked.

I'm a pretty free market guy, but I don't think trying to save small amounts of money by lowering wages at the very bottom of the system is likely to make any material difference and it will really hurt those people.

If it turns out we can have one 300k/year administrator instead of a multi-person 300k/year each board then great. But trying to squeeze the folks at $18/hr down to $16.50 (or whatever the exact numbers are) doesn't seem like the way to go to me. It probably won't work and in the mean time will cause a lot of pain to those least able to deal with it.

You also allow private companies to download costs onto our social system, as their pay and benefits get reduced. Maybe they need to hit the food bank more often, don't get time off to take their kids for medical care, lose dental benefits...On a society level the only beneficiary are those who profit off the privatization. Everyone else loses.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...655795?cmp=rss

Smith picking more petty pointless fights.

Overstepping into federal jurisdiction.

Easier for others to stay in their lane when you aren’t weaving in and out of yours, no?

[Fuzz]

All lanes are Smith lanes. She's a Libertarian. ME ME ME ME ME

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by GGG

Is there enough large companies that can support this at a lower cost while maintaining the ability to have competition between providers and will disruptions when providers change be worth it.

Are the savings going to be real or is the level of service going to be cut to make it appear like it works?

Do we have good evidence that exporting these services has worked?

Which lab services are the lowest cost per test for the province?

I think you need to be careful with privatization of it creates an oligopoly.

- most likely. Private companies already exist that build the hospitals.
- we won’t know until we try it.
- I wasn’t talking about lab services
- I wasn’t talking about privatizing all healthcare, just trying a pilot project to see if savings could be found.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

- most likely. Private companies already exist that build the hospitals.
- we won’t know until we try it.
- I wasn’t talking about lab services
- I wasn’t talking about privatizing all healthcare, just trying a pilot project to see if savings could be found.

Are you under the impression that we haven’t already tried this? One could forgive this error as it may have been difficult to notice the changes since they have provided no noticeable improvements in efficiency

[GGG]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

- most likely. Private companies already exist that build the hospitals.
- we won’t know until we try it.
- I wasn’t talking about lab services
- I wasn’t talking about privatizing all healthcare, just trying a pilot project to see if savings could be found.

That isn’t what you stated in your post I responded to. It suggested privatizing support services because they didn’t do their job and were overpaid. Your phrasing of that post was bound to create a reaction.

I agree that small pilot projects in areas that we have evidence that we will see savings in should be tried and expanded.

Where I was bringing up lab services is we already have a private public mix so we should be able to do a full analysis on which services are the most efficient to understand the impacts of privatization.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

- most likely. Private companies already exist that build the hospitals.
- we won’t know until we try it.
- I wasn’t talking about lab services
- I wasn’t talking about privatizing all healthcare, just trying a pilot project to see if savings could be found.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you under the impression that we haven’t already tried this? One could forgive this error as it may have been difficult to notice the changes since they have provided no noticeable improvements in efficiency

Perhaps 8 ball is under the impression that other jurisdictions haven't tested this out, and we can use them as evidence for how this would go here.

Private health care costs more for everyone, leads to moderately better outcomes for the rich, bankruptcy for the middle class, and worse outcomes for the poor to start to choose rationing over spending. It isn't a body of water we need to dip our toe any deeper into .

[GGG]

Originally Posted by #-3

Perhaps 8 ball is under the impression that other jurisdictions haven't tested this out, and we can use them as evidence for how this would go here.

Private health care costs more for everyone, leads to moderately better outcomes for the rich, bankruptcy for the middle class, and worse outcomes for the poor to start to choose rationing over spending. It isn't a body of water we need to dip our toe any deeper into .

I think 8 ball is discussing the private delivery of services within the public system.

For example family doctors are private business provide a service paid by the public heath care system. Should we expand or contract these types of private delivery of public services and which gives the best outcomes in terms of cost or patient outcomes.

[Yikes]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Well then. Good luck with that.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1594019020629577729

The more I see from her the more I am convinced he is going to come out of this as the leader of a new ruralish, right wing, Provincial party.
She is either real dumb and believes she has the ability to change all things to pro - Alberta or quite smart and setting this up perfectly.

[8 Ball]

Originally Posted by #-3

Perhaps 8 ball is under the impression that other jurisdictions haven't tested this out, and we can use them as evidence for how this would go here.

Private health care costs more for everyone, leads to moderately better outcomes for the rich, bankruptcy for the middle class, and worse outcomes for the poor to start to choose rationing over spending. It isn't a body of water we need to dip our toe any deeper into .

I didn’t say privatize health care, I think it should be free and available to everyone. I was saying we should see if privatizing some of the support services can save money.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by 8 Ball

I didn’t say privatize health care, I think it should be free and available to everyone. I was saying we should see if privatizing some of the support services can save money.

Right, but I think we've experienced enough of this to know that it isnt necessarily the case.