Thursday, March 02, 2006

King Ralph and Health Care Reform

I've been musing for a couple of days about Alberta's Health Care Policy Framework.

Philosophically, I don't like a lot of what I see, and will no doubt spend a fair bit of time in the coming days dissecting the policy direction and the likely impact - it's going to take me some digging to put my arguments together - largely because I'm going to have to do some research on what happened in Thatcher-era UK and more recently New Zealand to substantiate some of my suspicions. (or, possibly invalidate them - we'll see)

What grabbed my attention was Ralph's lovely little temper tantrum in the Legislature yesterday. We've known for years that Ralph has a thin skin, and doesn't especially like to be sitting in the legislature - especially during question period. After claiming to want to hear what Albertans think, what the hell did he expect?

The opposition Liberal Party sent across the floor a copy of Their Health Policy Plan - which last I looked did a far better job of reflecting the results of last springs Symposium on health care policy. (Which RalphCo seems to have blithely ignored in their plans.

Me - I'd love to get my grubby little paws on the donor lists for Ralph & party for the last fifteen years. I have sneaking suspicions that parts of that list read like a "who's who" of big dollar medicine in the United States. Why do I say this? First, Ralph has been on the Health Care line for a long time, and he keeps trying to come up with something every couple of years. I suspect that there's a few "debts" to be paid before he retires.

Right now, Ralph is in the perfect place to do what the heck he pleases - he has an overwhelming majority, a Conservative government in Ottawa and a $10bn budget surplus this year. Even if the Federal Gov't was to decide to cut the transfer payments for Health Care, Ralph couldn't care less.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just so you know, the donor lists for Alberta provincial political parties are available from the Chief Electoral Officer. All donations over $500 have to be reported to the Chief Electoral Officer. You can view the records for free (in Edmonton) or can request copies for the cost of the copying.

JN

www.nishiyama.tzo.com

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