Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[DownInFlames]

Yoho, you have competition.

[Stewie991]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

Yoho, you have competition.

He doesn’t need it. He’s doing fairly well in life. Others I worry about on Here😭😢😔☹️

[FormerPresJamesTaylor]

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Stewie991

I find them better offf for blood work. My son was in and out 2 months ago in 15 minutes. I remember 2 years ago for me it was 2-3 hours.

Do you actually believe the creation of a private monopoly is a good plan for lab services?

At least you could argue that we are seeing challenges because that what occurs in any organizational transfer. Why bother to deny the current issue when just going to the booking site shows the issue.

[Jason14h]

https://www.taplabs.ca/

You can pay $85 for an at home no wait blood collection

This is where I like privatization/non 100% government - options like this

And if enough people who can afford use it , the wait time should disapear at the free facilities

Not perfect / there yet , but options like this are great .

Edit : could the government offer pay for services like this without privitization - I’m sure they could but options are good.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

https://www.taplabs.ca/

You can pay $85 for an at home no wait blood collection

This is where I like privatization/non 100% government - options like this

And if enough people who can afford use it , the wait time should disapear at the free facilities

Not perfect / there yet , but options like this are great .

Edit : could the government offer pay for services like this without privitization - I’m sure they could but options are good.

And if you make the existing service crappy enough we all will.

I agree that the government should have a rate they will pay for various lab services and just qualify companies.

My big issue with services like this or private MRIs is they allow you to queue to get to see specialists faster for review of data. So you pay a small fee to bypass a bottleneck while still getting the public sector to pay the bulk of the fees.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

https://www.taplabs.ca/

You can pay $85 for an at home no wait blood collection

This is where I like privatization/non 100% government - options like this

And if enough people who can afford use it , the wait time should disapear at the free facilities

Not perfect / there yet , but options like this are great .

Edit : could the government offer pay for services like this without privitization - I’m sure they could but options are good.

Wait times weren't an issue before Dynalife took over.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by GGG

And if you make the existing service crappy enough we all will.

I agree that the government should have a rate they will pay for various lab services and just qualify companies.

My big issue with services like this or private MRIs is they allow you to queue to get to see specialists faster for review of data. So you pay a small fee to bypass a bottleneck while still getting the public sector to pay the bulk of the fees.

It’s only faster when there’s a bottleneck . And to get rid of the bottleneck you either raise taxes for all or charge the people who are willing to pay extra / value their time more then the cost

There are lots of people who’s time isn’t worth the $85 and should be driving to a lab to get it done . There are other people who value their time and having them pay is better for all and will remove the lines (assuming there isn’t a shortage of blood collectors then it is counter intuitive to have blood collectors driving around)

For the record I have never used because you can walk into any blood colllection site , give them your number , and they text you when there’s a spot avail and you walk right in . I went and did my grocery shopping while I waited

However , family who has a young child used the service and said it was amazing

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Wait times weren't an issue before Dynalife took over.

The adults are trying to have real conversations, go back to calling every person in the province who voted opposite of you a racist and a bigot , or complaining about Elon in the Twitter thread

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

The adults are trying to have real conversations, go back to calling every person in the province who voted opposite of you a racist and a bigot , or complaining about Elon in the Twitter thread

I think he only said that at worst, UCP voters tolerate bigots and racists. It’s not incorrect.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

The adults are trying to have real conversations, go back to calling every person in the province who voted opposite of you a racist and a bigot , or complaining about Elon in the Twitter thread

I guess it's easier to dismiss it than address it. The only reason there is a problem is because the UCP sold it to a private company. It wasn't broken before, so didn't need fixing. It's broken now, and your solution is more private services.


It's not those who vote different than me(no issue with that), it's those who vote for a party full of bigots, taken over by bigots, and supported by, well, you get the idea.


Also, I don't remember calling anyone racist.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Faust

David Parker, Ezra Levant, and Theo Fleury are all celebrating this morning.

Based on the voting numbers 926,918 others are as well.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Based on the voting numbers 926,918 others are as well.

That’s a lot of racists in our great province

[sa226]

You can debate back and forth and muddy the waters with anecdotal stories and philosophies about the current and future state of our health care system.

Health care isn't just ER wait times, it's an entire system that includes education programs, vaccinations, family docs, drug programs and lab services. As a family of 4 that regularly accesses lab services for various reasons, the dynalife debacle is the clearest example of the government sticking its nose into something that was working perfectly fine and making it worse.

[Goriders]

Will be interesting to see if all of the fear mongering in the media over Smith will come true or not. My guess is none of it will come true. But we will see.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

That’s a lot of racists in our great province

That makes sense. Think you’re on to something.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Will be interesting to see if all of the fear mongering in the media over Smith will come true or not. My guess is none of it will come true. But we will see.

Non? We have at least 1 million confirmed racists and bigots , never mind the ones who don’t vote .

If we survive to Friday without complete civil unrest it will be a miracle

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Is that primary care? Or does it include dental care, optometry, cosmetic surgery, etc? Because private insurance in Germany, the Netherlands, etc. funds regular surgeries, hospital stays, etc. The areas where Canada has a capacity crisis.

It includes all health care, so dental, optometry, and prescription drugs are included. But that doesn't really change anything. The reason to add private insurance into Canada's primary care system would be to introduce additional funds. But that's not really what happens in the European systems. In Germany for instance, 11% of the population is covered by private insurance, but only about 8% of health expenditures come from that system. Which makes sense, because as I mentioned above, people in Germany tend to opt for private insurance because it saves them money (they tend to be younger/healthier and high earners). They would have more funding if everyone was forced into the public scheme.

You’re a smart guy, opendoor. Why does Canada have much lower health care capacity than northern European countries? What should we adopt from their systems?

The two biggest things are:

1) Lower public funding; Germany spends 45% more public money on healthcare per capita and most of the better European systems spend 10-30% more.

2) Higher staff costs due to competition with the US. The average doctor or nurse's salary in Canada is about 20-30% higher than in France, the UK, etc. And the countries where healthcare professionals are paid at a similar level to Canada (Germany is one example), the overall funding is significantly higher to compensate.

And the proof is in the numbers; most of the good European systems have 3.5-5 doctors per 1,000 people; we have 2.8. That's not a public vs private thing, or an efficiency thing, that's just fewer doctors. If we had 30-60% more doctors per capita, most of the issues we have with wait times and access would disappear. But introducing private health care without increasing the health resources in the country will do nothing except reduce the average person's healthcare quality.

[belsarius]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Will be interesting to see if all of the fear mongering in the media over Smith will come true or not. My guess is none of it will come true. But we will see.

What fear mongering? All the media has done for the last two months is repeat her own words back

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by belsarius

What fear mongering? All the media has done for the last two months is repeat her own words back

The amount of amnesia, cognitive dissonance and willful ignorance by Smith's supporters is truly something to behold.