Don’t believe those who say Medicare is doomed

Ralph Klein is at it again – trying to scare Albertans into submission. This time he’s trying to convince people that Medicare is on its deathbed and that radical measures such as privatization and de-listing are the only possible cures.

This is the oldest game in politics: create a crisis atmosphere and it becomes easier to convince people to support ideas and policies they would normally oppose.

This is what the Klein government did in 1993 when it raised a panic about public debt to justify deep budget cuts. And it’s what they’re doing now with health care.

But the truth in this case is that the sky is NOT falling.

In a carefully researched series of fact sheets, Friends of Medicare does all Albertans a favour by showing that health spending has been relatively flat over the past decade. They also show that Alberta spends less as a percentage of its GDP on health care than any other province.

Based on these facts, it’s clear that the situation in health care is not nearly as bad as the Premier lets on. That’s not to say that we should maintain the status quo. There is a need for reform. But the situation is not so bad that we need to abandon what generations of Canadians have fought to create.