Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

UCP lifts auto insurance price caps on the province that already pays the highest premiums in the country. We're gonna get poorer again next year

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ault-1.7386459

Gross, but no surprise. Just wait until we need health insurance.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Locke

Well...how about this? How about we split the difference?

Let the teachers teach the material and then get professionals in to answer questions. Mind you, I'd accept that this might be too much for Jr. High.

For about 10 years I did seminars with a local Family Services organization where I'd come in for a few hours and answer questions for low-income families, at-risk youth and immigrants.

And I did those for free. Because I hate seeing people get taken advantage of on the back of bad advice.

Okay, but only if we get every kid's parents to sign permission slips to opt in, just like sex-ed. Gotta be careful of those dangerous professionals that might sneak in and brainwash your kids with the woke communist ideology.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

For about 10 years I did seminars with a local Family Services organization where I'd come in for a few hours and answer questions for low-income families, at-risk youth and immigrants.

When society as we know it inevitably collapses I’m confident we’ll be able to trace back the beginning of the decline to this.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

I completely understand the hate for insurance but keep in mind its highly regulated. The majority of an insurance companies profit comes from investments and the goal for the policy side is to run at a break even. They can't take from the investment money as that is premiums held to cover losses so when running at a negative rates have to go up. Once the rates go up now and the reforms take place the yearly losses will go down significantly and the company will run in a positive ratio.

Now the fear is why would companies lower rates at this point and that is where competitive pricing comes back into play. When company A lowers rates like they should and Company B doesn't where is everyone going to go? Now company A can make way more money on their safe investments. Now we are back in a consumers market.

you didn't speak to anything about this:

In a no-fault system, accident victims do not have the right to sue at-fault drivers; instead, their own insurers pay out injury benefits based on predetermined guidelines.


we're supposed to give up our ability to sue, and trust a for profit insurance company to properly take care of our medical needs? who makes these "predetermined guidelines"? The UCP that doesn't trust doctors or science?

have you even dealt with an insurance company for a claim? I'm sure as #### not trusting them to put my need at par with their greed.

[Fuzz]

Look man, plastic bumpers are getting more and more expensive to fix, with all their sensors and layers of paint. If they still want to have money to pay for them, how can they possibly pay for injuries to people?

[KelVarnsen]

If people want cheaper insurance they shouldn't crash - Marlaina

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

you didn't speak to anything about this:

In a no-fault system, accident victims do not have the right to sue at-fault drivers; instead, their own insurers pay out injury benefits based on predetermined guidelines.


we're supposed to give up our ability to sue, and trust a for profit insurance company to properly take care of our medical needs? who makes these "predetermined guidelines"? The UCP that doesn't trust doctors or science?

have you even dealt with an insurance company for a claim? I'm sure as #### not trusting them to put my need at par with their greed.

For starters you need to separate yourself from political views, this isn't a political move even though this is the only good thing the UCP has and will probably ever do.

Details on Alberta have yet to be released but we can assume it will be similar to the Ontario model. Here is the main system.

"With Ontario no-fault insurance your insurance company will cover you and your passengers for damages and injuries from a car accident. The rationale is that you will get compensation quicker so that you can move on with your life faster.

In some cases, however, you can’t move on with your life because the injuries that you have sustained are permanent and disabling. In the case of serious injuries, you can still sue an at-fault driver for pain and suffering, loss of income not covered by your auto insurer, and other expenses not covered by your auto insurer, such as medical rehabilitation expenses."

https://tinyurl.com/Link-to-more-details

So with the current system you get a diagnosis of your injuries, usually soft tissue injuries such as whiplash by a physiotherapist, chiropractor, or doctor. There are 3 categories 1 and 2 are soft tissue and a set amount of treatments are approved, 3 involves worse injuries such as broken bones etc. So you are diagnosed as a 2 and given 21 treatments to use in basically any medicinal field like massage, acupuncture, chiro, physio and the more obscure like prolotherapy (Sugar water injections). you finish the 21 treatments and then you are either back to near pre accident condition. This is treatment under protocols now if you were not at fault you are entitled to a settlement for pain and suffering, out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but the cap on the settlement for pain in suffering as of Jan 2024 was $6,061. So 6 grand, maybe some out of pocket expenses etc they cut you a cheque for $10,000 let say. Very reasonable and no one would complain about these losses being excessive, but if you have a lawyer for this they take their cut and its not really worth their time.

BUT lawyers are resourceful and they know there must be things that would take you outside of the cap so now every injury claim has a TMJ injury, psychological injuries etc. Now you are outside of the cap and the chequebook is wide open. Now keep in mind your insurance company is the one helping you with treatments but the at fault company deals with your settlement compensation. You have been treating for a year with no progress, your neck still hurts in the morning so your company decides to send you for an independent medical exam, these are a group of doctors you submit to for a report, you don't choose the doctor its meant to be random. Doctor looks over everything and decides you don't need more treatment, your company gets the report back and cuts you off. Now your lawyer is threatening to sue your insurance company for bad faith as well as the other company for your injuries. Insurance companies don't want to go to court and will usually settle so in this scenario everyone has settled.

So lets recap in scenario 1 you got paid out $10,000 for your sore neck (In this scenario not assuming injuries don't get worse) and the whole process was over in a few months.

Scenario 2 the whole injury claim from both sides has cost 10x as much, you are going to get more money though lets say $30,000 plus out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but lawyers fees and other fees jumped the total cost paid out to over $100,000.

Times are tough and who wouldn't want $30,000, your whole claim now for one accident including damages to vehicles and everything else is going to run about $200,000.00.

Now this is your first accident, you have been paying premiums for 20 years so its not fair that your premiums and everyone else go up but that 20 years of premiums covered maybe $50,000 of this one claim. Insurance is a big pot of money that we all pay into so there is enough when you need it but your one "minor" injury accident just wiped out 20 years of premiums of your own and more. The pot of money isn't allowed to go lower so everyone now needs to make up the difference but insurance companies aren't allowed to raise premiums so now what do they do?

This is a very basic take on this from a non insurance person but I assure you its very accurate. I would never advocate taking away peoples rights to monetary compensation for serious injuries and the new system does not do that it just removes the ability for minor injury costs to be inflated out of control.

Edit: I also want to add this scenario assumes you are alone in your vehicle, lets add 3 or 4 more people and you can see where this is going and this is an insured person that went into this with no intentions of taking advantage of the system now lets add people that do take advantage and have fraudulent accident/injuries.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by SebC

That's the part of this kind of grates me. We're telling kids that if their finances are crap it's their own fault when we've rigged our society to benefit billionaires at the expense of everyone else.

The best thing you can do for your personal finances is eat the rich, but I bet they won't teach that in school.

The top 20 per cent are doing better than ever. Whole sectors of the economy - travel, dining, home renos, elite kids sports, etc. - have massively expanded in recent decades as two-income-professional households thrived in the knowledge economy. But that’s the kind of inequality the chattering classes don’t like to acknowledge.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The top 20 per cent are doing better than ever. Whole sectors of the economy - travel, dining, home renos, elite kids sports, etc. - have massively expanded in recent decades as two-income-professional households thrived in the knowledge economy. But that’s the kind of inequality the chattering classes don’t like to acknowledge.

Yes Cliff, nobody ever talks about the multi-millionaires when talking about wealth equality. Best to insult them as good measure.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

For starters you need to separate yourself from political views, this isn't a political move even though this is the only good thing the UCP has and will probably ever do.

Details on Alberta have yet to be released but we can assume it will be similar to the Ontario model. Here is the main system.

"With Ontario no-fault insurance your insurance company will cover you and your passengers for damages and injuries from a car accident. The rationale is that you will get compensation quicker so that you can move on with your life faster.

In some cases, however, you can’t move on with your life because the injuries that you have sustained are permanent and disabling. In the case of serious injuries, you can still sue an at-fault driver for pain and suffering, loss of income not covered by your auto insurer, and other expenses not covered by your auto insurer, such as medical rehabilitation expenses."

https://tinyurl.com/Link-to-more-details

So with the current system you get a diagnosis of your injuries, usually soft tissue injuries such as whiplash by a physiotherapist, chiropractor, or doctor. There are 3 categories 1 and 2 are soft tissue and a set amount of treatments are approved, 3 involves worse injuries such as broken bones etc. So you are diagnosed as a 2 and given 21 treatments to use in basically any medicinal field like massage, acupuncture, chiro, physio and the more obscure like prolotherapy (Sugar water injections). you finish the 21 treatments and then you are either back to near pre accident condition. This is treatment under protocols now if you were not at fault you are entitled to a settlement for pain and suffering, out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but the cap on the settlement for pain in suffering as of Jan 2024 was $6,061. So 6 grand, maybe some out of pocket expenses etc they cut you a cheque for $10,000 let say. Very reasonable and no one would complain about these losses being excessive, but if you have a lawyer for this they take their cut and its not really worth their time.

BUT lawyers are resourceful and they know there must be things that would take you outside of the cap so now every injury claim has a TMJ injury, psychological injuries etc. Now you are outside of the cap and the chequebook is wide open. Now keep in mind your insurance company is the one helping you with treatments but the at fault company deals with your settlement compensation. You have been treating for a year with no progress, your neck still hurts in the morning so your company decides to send you for an independent medical exam, these are a group of doctors you submit to for a report, you don't choose the doctor its meant to be random. Doctor looks over everything and decides you don't need more treatment, your company gets the report back and cuts you off. Now your lawyer is threatening to sue your insurance company for bad faith as well as the other company for your injuries. Insurance companies don't want to go to court and will usually settle so in this scenario everyone has settled.

So lets recap in scenario 1 you got paid out $10,000 for your sore neck (In this scenario not assuming injuries don't get worse) and the whole process was over in a few months.

Scenario 2 the whole injury claim from both sides has cost 10x as much, you are going to get more money though lets say $30,000 plus out of pocket expenses, lost wages etc but lawyers fees and other fees jumped the total cost paid out to over $100,000.

Times are tough and who wouldn't want $30,000, your whole claim now for one accident including damages to vehicles and everything else is going to run about $200,000.00.

Now this is your first accident, you have been paying premiums for 20 years so its not fair that your premiums and everyone else go up but that 20 years of premiums covered maybe $50,000 of this one claim. Insurance is a big pot of money that we all pay into so there is enough when you need it but your one "minor" injury accident just wiped out 20 years of premiums of your own and more. The pot of money isn't allowed to go lower so everyone now needs to make up the difference but insurance companies aren't allowed to raise premiums so now what do they do?

This is a very basic take on this from a non insurance person but I assure you its very accurate. I would never advocate taking away peoples rights to monetary compensation for serious injuries and the new system does not do that it just removes the ability for minor injury costs to be inflated out of control.

Edit: I also want to add this scenario assumes you are alone in your vehicle, lets add 3 or 4 more people and you can see where this is going and this is an insured person that went into this with no intentions of taking advantage of the system now lets add people that do take advantage and have fraudulent accident/injuries.

I’ve posted before, but I’d love to see a breakdown of insurance dollars paid out for property claims in Alberta vs injury claims. I realize that you can legislate against one of these and that makes it attractive, but I’m skeptical about the impact. I think things like hailstorms and wildfires are the bigger impact for insurers and I would want to see the information. I’d also be curious to know how the injury claims have grown and become a larger and larger issue. There have been caps and flat rate payouts for many years here, so it would be interesting to see a breakdown.

[SebC]

A theoretical advantage of no-fault insurance is that you stop paying the personal injuries lawyers and judges out of your insurance premiums and taxes.

[BigThief]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yes Cliff, nobody ever talks about the multi-millionaires when talking about wealth equality. Best to insult them as good measure.

His reply to SebC legit confused me. Like who is Cliff responding to? Was he just eager to use Chattering Classes and wedged it into a reply?

[Fuzz]

Alberta school boards say the provincial government should retain an opt-out system for sexual health education in schools, as politicians debate a bill that would require families to opt students in.

Ya...good luck with that. In words even the dumbest of UCP MLA's should be able to understand, but won't...

"It is important that our young people understand how their bodies work, what their body parts are called, how to create babies and how not to create babies, how to avoid getting a sexually transmitted infection," Dennis said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...388065?cmp=rss


I couldn't imagine being stupid enough to think this is a good thing. How ####ing stupid are these people? How much stupider than this do you have to be to elect these people? Stupid.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yes Cliff, nobody ever talks about the multi-millionaires when talking about wealth equality. Best to insult them as good measure.

The fact you think I’m talking about multi-millionaires just proves my point. 100k income puts you in the top 20 per cent of Canadian individuals. A household with two education professionals earnings 100k+ is affluent by Canadian standards, and that class of household has been pulling away from the pack for decades now. The growing inequality between the upper middle class and households earning 50k or 60k is more salient to the everyday lives of most Canadians than whatever the 0.1 per cent are up to.

I guess we follow different media spaces, because I see far more warnings (like SebC’s) about what billionaires are doing to social cohesion than what the professional classes are doing.

[Raekwon]

Originally Posted by Slava

I’ve posted before, but I’d love to see a breakdown of insurance dollars paid out for property claims in Alberta vs injury claims. I realize that you can legislate against one of these and that makes it attractive, but I’m skeptical about the impact. I think things like hailstorms and wildfires are the bigger impact for insurers and I would want to see the information. I’d also be curious to know how the injury claims have grown and become a larger and larger issue. There have been caps and flat rate payouts for many years here, so it would be interesting to see a breakdown.

There are no rate caps on property insurance so the pot is handled properly. rates will go up but more slowly and calculated. Insurance should be taught at a basic level in High School along with other life skills like taxes and retirement (In a class like CALM maybe) . Most people only know that they need insurance to drive but a basic understanding of the system would be beneficial.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

There are no rate caps on property insurance so the pot is handled properly. rates will go up but more slowly and calculated. Insurance should be taught at a basic level in High School along with other life skills like taxes and retirement (In a class like CALM maybe) . Most people only know that they need insurance to drive but a basic understanding of the system would be beneficial.

Good idea

I remember talking to a random at a party once and they were complaining about an insurance claim they had, specifically their contents. They were complaining that insurance is a massive scam.

I explained to them that they don't need to pay contents insurance. Those were all their items they owned and didn't need to ensure them.

They argued that they needed to have insurance because of their mortgage and no matter how hard i tried they would not believe they didn't need to carry contents insurance.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Raekwon

There are no rate caps on property insurance so the pot is handled properly. rates will go up but more slowly and calculated. Insurance should be taught at a basic level in High School along with other life skills like taxes and retirement (In a class like CALM maybe) . Most people only know that they need insurance to drive but a basic understanding of the system would be beneficial.

I'm not sure if you're taking a shot at me and saying that I don't understand insurance?

The property rates will increase as the costs increase. When we have catastrophes like record-breaking hailstorms or wildfires, your insurance premiums are rising. I would contest that this increase is not small.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Slava

I'm not sure if you're taking a shot at me and saying that I don't understand insurance?
.

I didn't read it that way.

I read it as a comment on society as a whole.

Many people do not understand, nor do they take the time to even read their insurance policies.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I guess we follow different media spaces, because I see far more warnings (like SebC’s) about what billionaires are doing to social cohesion than what the professional classes are doing.

The professional class isn't buying out all legacy media, sponsoring politicians to do their bidding, and brainwashing the lower class into voting for right-wing populists who don't have lower-class interests at heart.

They're just pulling away because they're marrying each other instead of their hot secretaries. This gives the next generation of professionals a greater advantage. Intraclass families are bad for wealth inequality but it's not like you can tell people who to love.

The professional class are more high-end labourers than they are rent-seekers. It's rent-seeking that takes the outputs of productivity away from workers. Eat the rent-seekers!

Remember: billionaires want you to go after anyone but billionaires.

[Fuzz]

Questions are being raised about the Alberta government's plan to convert five health regions into seven new "health corridors," as it rearranges health-care planning.

Dr. Braden Manns, a former AHS interim vice-president, is concerned about the plan."If they're talking about seven health zones, that's going to mean seven CEOs, seven physician leads. It's going to mean additional quality councils. It's going to mean more administration," said Manns, a professor of medicine and health economics at the University of Calgary.

"Now you've got four pillars and seven zones? That is a lot of relationships that need to happen."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...387955?cmp=rss

Who would have thought the solution to our health care woes was more managers and administrators, with more red tape and silos? Classic Conservative governance at work, here. Good stuff.