| Re: "Health care deadbeats owe millions," by Jennifer Wiley, News, May 3-9, 2007
Fast Forward reporter Jennifer Wiley seems to have bought fully into the Tory pitch that the health consumer is somehow responsible for Alberta’s health care crisis. Wiley doesn’t seem to understand that Alberta’s health care premiums have more to do with conservative ideology than practical policy. Even Tories admit that our current premium system is intended to inform Albertans that health care services are costly. Of course, high-income Albertans don’t require these quarterly reminders; their premiums are generally paid by their employers. But, as the story goes, forcing less-privileged Albertans to pay health premiums somehow restrains us from flocking to Alberta’s crowded clinics and emergency rooms to partake in the pleasures of medically unnecessary jabs, pokes and incisions. If the premiums were intended only to generate tax revenue they would, as in other provinces, be a line item on our income tax forms. This is, of course, the most efficient way for governments to generate income and it eliminates the "deadbeat" problem Wiley "informs" us of in her article. But this approach fails to create a health care bogeyman. One thing Tories are good at – something Wiley seems to support – is encouraging Albertans to question the practices of other citizens rather than to examine the practices of the government.
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