How The UCP Is Lining Up To Steal Your Healthcare (and Rights)

Things are beginning to line up in terms of the UCP's plan and we can see now how they are going to attack health care and Albertans.  There's quite a sequence of things here, but the picture they paint when you draw it all out is quite interesting - and not in a good way interesting.

Health Insurance Is Becoming A Scam

I have long been suspicious of health insurance plans of any sort.  Even short term health insurance for travel seems to be written in such a way that it is weighted quite firmly in favour of the insurer than the insured.

Recently, three cases in Canada came to light that underscore the point.

“They hold all the cards in their hand. It’s a poker game, and I don’t think we are the winners,” said Jean Tetiuk, of Toronto, whose $12,000 claim was rejected by CIBC. 

In each case, the medical emergencies abroad had nothing to do with any pre-existing conditions they were asked about. 

So, if you had some obscure "pre-existing condition" that you had forgotten about or didn't answer the booby trap questions on the questionnaire correctly for them, your insurance is null and void?

CIBC later refused to pay, because Peixoto filled out a CIBC questionnaire — sent to her after she returned from her trip — answering that she had not been treated for a heart condition. Before buying the policy, she had only answered health questions over the phone. 

Records show she was tested for heart problems in 2011, after she had pain in her arm, but doctors found nothing significant. Because of those tests, CIBC said Peixoto should have answered yes to the heart condition question.  

“I was never treated for a heart condition. I never had a heart condition. I’ve been tested and different things but I never had a problem before. And I still don’t have a heart problem,” said Peixoto. 

This is nothing more than the insurers playing semantics.  They are hiring teams of lawyers and very carefully constructing questions using language that has specific meanings in the legal world and most ordinary people would understand it to mean something quite different.

This kind of semantic game is up there with the "pre-existing condition" escape clause that every health insurer out there likes to play.  If you have a long term need for medication of some sort, hope like hell you aren't going to have to change insurers along the way - because there goes your coverage.

And Harper has begun the process of dismantling our national health care system, which will subject more and more Canadians to this kind of chicanery at times when they need help the most.

Corporate greed knows few bounds, and is usually only bounded by laws.  When it comes to health, there are more ways to weasel out of providing coverage that they have committed to, and it will always be at the expense of the individual.

If insurance companies are playing games like this with travel insurance coverage, can you imagine what will happen when Harper hands over the keys to medicare to them?

What The US Government Shutdown Really Shows

Last night, the US Government shut down all 'non-essential' services.  The reason?  Because a group of Republicans in the House of Representatives had a hissy fit over funding health care and tried to slam riders onto the budget legislation which would defund it, and the Senate refused to pass the amended legislation.

The end result?  A stalemate, and the wheels of government brought to an abrupt halt.

Republicans have been trying to block "Obamacare" since day one.  At the end of the day, they have lost at every turn.  It has been passed in both houses, their court challenges against it have failed and so on.

Practically speaking, what this shutdown really looks like is a hostage taking.  The far right in the House Republican majority have chosen to hold the funding of the US government's routine operations hostage to their demand to not fund "Obamacare" (more correctly the "Affordable Care Act" - ACA).

This is a highly manipulative, dishonest act on the part of the Republicans - and in particular the "Tea Party" rump.  The Tea Party followers seem to have decided that they can achieve their goals by being rigid, inflexible and dramatic - if not outright extremist - in their politics.

However, the bigger question that people should be asking is "who benefits from the Tea Party tactics?".  It certainly isn't the 50 million Americans who cannot access health care coverage today.  It certainly isn't the people who rely on the government services that are currently shut down or the employees of those services either.  Nor, from a political standpoint does it appear to be something which will ultimately benefit the Republicans or the Tea Party rump.

So ... who benefits?  ... and how do they benefit?

You need to look at the who is the money behind the Tea Party movement, and then try to understand how they benefit from the kind of disruption that the Tea Party is creating in US politics.    How do the very wealthy benefit from the current situation?  In several ways.  Some direct, some indirect.

While I don't necessarily think that the Koch brothers (for example) benefit directly by shutting down the US government, they do have something to gain.  First of all, the shenanigans going on in Washington serve as a powerful diversion of the American public's attention.  That creates a lot of opportunities for groups like Koch to move pieces around the chess board without being noticed.

One of the pieces that many people are likely overlooking is how Obamacare undermines the emerging corporate feudal state.  The current situation in the US makes health care a pivotal piece of how corporations can retain control over employees.  An employee who is covered by health insurance, but has a long term health condition (euphemistically called a "pre-existing condition") is in a very difficult place when it comes to changing jobs, or starting their own business.  Move to a smaller company that doesn't provide benefits coverage, and suddenly you are paying the full shot for premiums out of your salary - a non trivial amount.  Start your own company?  Likely as not, you won't have a lot of income for a year or two while getting it off the ground.  Suddenly, you find yourself in the place where you have no coverage and that pre-existing condition renders you either unable to get coverage at all, or with so many exceptions to what is covered that you are fundamentally hosed.

So ... what does that mean for the average employee?  They're stuck.  They can move between similar sized companies to some extent, but taking major steps in new directions is unlikely.  This gives the people at the top of the economic food chain effectively a feudal lord's control over their staff ... and it makes it much easier to exploit people by paying them less, reducing benefits or increasing hours of work.

In a similar vein, one has to only consider the utter lack of empathy that is exhibited by the extremists towards those who are struggling to survive.  Republicans have voted to strip funding from the Food Stamps program, now they are trying their best to kill off the biggest health care reform in decades.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but working actively to undermine the supports for those who are the most vulnerable demonstrates an almost pathological lack of empathy - one that is only surpassed by the seemingly endless greed that the mega corporations and their leadership seem to exhibit.

It's Called Shooting The Messenger

Not smart, Mr. Stelmach. This morning's lecture telling Albertans to "settle down" on the health care issues, followed by what you did to the messenger in your own caucus.

Dr. Sherman is not the problem - the problem exists right smack in the midst of the government you are responsible for, Mr. Stelmach.

Things weren't in great shape before Mr. Liepert became the minister responsible, but they have taken a distinct turn for the worse since he created his "superboard". Although Gene Zwozdesky is more moderate than Liepert, the fact is that things have continued to deteriorate.

In firing Dr. Sherman, you have shown Albertans that you are more willing to shoot the messenger than to take actual actions to resolve problems. Chastising Albertans for their very real concerns about access to health care tells us you are very, very out of touch with the lives of real Albertans.

Mr. Stelmach, you have neither the vision or wisdom of Peter Lougheed, nor do you possess the baffling charisma of Ralph Klein. How many votes have you just alienated?

Alberta Cuts Health Care To Pad Executive Salaries

Via The Calgary Herald:

Eight senior executives with Alberta Health Services received nearly $500,000 in bonuses last summer, leading the opposition to demand the government put an end to such hefty payouts.

In Edmonton, Liberal health critic Kevin Taft released documents left, Tuesday -- obtained through access to information legislation -- that show top health bureaucrats received bonuses between $19,000 and $130,000.

So, in the Spring of 2009, the Alberta Government cut a range of programs - some of them meeting key medical care needs of their patients - so that Liepert's "superboard" could afford to pay out executive bonuses?

Alberta Health Services is now finalizing payouts for the 2009-10 fiscal year -- including Duckett's performance-based compensation -- which will be determined once the financial statements are reviewed by the auditor general in June. The organization ran a deficit of $1.3 billion for the fiscal year ending in March.

We're going to pay out bonuses when the organization is losing money? WTF? If you go losing millions of dollars, and your workforce is as completely demoralized as we've been hearing about lately, I'd say that's a failure of leadership. Starting with the executives.

Regardless, cutting services only to direct monies into "bonus compensation" for executives is positively insane.

This says so much about the "Old Boys Network" that is the Alberta Government under the PCs. Not only is there a lack of vision, but the priority is lining their pockets not fulfilling the government's responsibilities towards its citizens.

One More Step Back To The Dark Ages

Good grief, is it possible for the Alberta Government to be any more malicious?

Mental-health patients at Alberta Hospital will no longer get free toothbrushes, face soap, sanitary napkins, coffee or snacks after Alberta Health Services stopped covering the cost.

For those unfamiliar, the Alberta Hospital is the provinces primary mental health hospital. If somebody's mental health issues are serious enough to require hospitalization, then chances are they have very limited - if any - resources at all.

Tadra Boulton, spokeswoman for Alberta Health Services, said Alberta Hospital Edmonton was the only hospital in the province supplying patients with personal hygiene items and with slippers or sunscreen for comfort. That cost the system $70,000 each year.

Cutting that was "part of aligning and standardizing our supplies across the province," Boulton said. "In other hospitals and care facilities, patients bring in their own items or they have their own family bring in their own items."

Do I really need to point out that there are significant differences between mental health hospitalization and acute care hospitalization? If I go into hospital for surgery, chances are that I will be released within a few days. If I'm hospitalized for mental health issues, chances are that it isn't a well defined "few days" to stabilize the situation.

Even more distressing is that mental health issues often result in long term poverty for the afflicted because of a combination of inability to work consistently (or at all) and the collective misconception society has about mental illness in general.

"They're such a vulnerable group and frequently they are folks who lack financial resources to support themselves in the community, let alone when they're in the hospital," Harrison said. Often, their families have broken apart because of the burden of mental illness.

"Gosh, this seems like one more stress and pressure for the families and patients who are already stressed due to their illness and the burden on the family but also about the uncertainty about the future of Alberta Hospital Edmonton," Harrison said.

Once again, the Stelmach government is balancing its budget by attacking those who are among the most vulnerable in our society, and those who have little or no political voice.

And Alberta Was Surprised By The Turnout?

So ... the Alberta Government was "surprised" by the high turnout for H1N1 vaccination.

Then there's stories like this in the news. Normally we don't hear about multiple people dying of flu infections in one week ... much less people in the prime of life:

At least three of the four had "risk factors," Predy said, adding he could not release further details because of privacy concerns.

Predy said 70 patients across Alberta are in intensive care with H1N1.

About 26% of those hospitalized are children under nine years old.

The median age is 30, according to officials.

Not only will parents be scared for their children, but they should be worried for themselves too.

While the news stories don't help the public see this as "perfectly normal", or make them patient about waiting for vaccination. Anything that attacks people this quickly and kills those that we would ordinarily have thought to be at low risk is going to provoke a visceral reaction.

Any government that is surprised by this kind of response is seriously out of touch with reality.

Mr Liepert, You Got Some s'Plainin To Do

Just what kind of monumental cock-up does it take for for a bunch of overpaid athletes to jump the queues for flu shots?

First of all this bunch of morons in Edmonton come up with a half-baked plan for rolling out H1N1 vaccine, and now we find out that rather than giving preferential treatment to medical and emergency personnel, the government was giving preferential treatment to the Calgary Flames?

Mr. Liepert, you give preferential treatment to that bunch and then bitch about those who stood in line for multiple hours to get a flu shot? Give me a break.

This puts Alberta squarely in the same place as both B.C. and Ontario where preferential access has been given to private clinics that charge a small fortune for people to have the dubious privilege of being their patients.

Someone remind me again what's so #%!##$@! great about privatizing health care? (Which I suspect strongly is precisely Mr. Liepert's goal - make things so awful that overpriced US-style insurance programs look good - so he can sell Alberta off to the private health insurance companies that have been lining the PC's pockets for so long)

Something Doesn't Add Up Here

So ... the Alberta Government is running in the red, with a cash flow problem. So ... they need to cut services - right?

Or perhaps they might start with cutting the bonuses and other unnecessary expenditures?

(as an aside: The 44 million spent on bonuses is enough to fund GRS for the next 60 odd years)

Alberta's Conservatives have lost sight of their responsibilities and priorities where the people of Alberta are concerned.

More Conservative "Innovation" - Alberta Style

So, now our geniuses in Edmonton want to close acute care beds and create long term care beds to replace them.

This is another example of how short-sighted the Alberta government really is. The problem they are addressing? There are people in acute care beds that should be in long term care facilities. So far, so good - creating long term care beds is a reasonable thing to do in addressing that problem.

However, it is dead wrong to simply close those acute care beds once you have shuffled the patients out of them into the new, and apparently cheaper to operate, long term beds.

Why do I say that this is an error? Simple - the supposition is that the acute care bed is not meaningfully needed outside of its current role of being a long term bed is false.

The net effect of this change is to further reduce the available bandwidth in acute care, which is guaranteed to increase waiting times for necessary treatment. It has been pointed out that the volume of this cut is equivalent to closing down the Grey Nuns hospital in Edmonton - it's just split between Edmonton and Calgary.

We already know that Calgary (and likely Edmonton too) is running with far fewer beds than we should be. This article shows Calgary and Edmonton at 1.7 Beds / 1,000 population - which is less than half the national average, at the time, and near the bottom of the heap when it comes to other countries ... only marginally better than Mexico.

All this does is exacerbate existing problems. Rather than actually measuring the effect of one change (adding long term care beds) and then determining how best to utilize those resources, they are just going to cut the acute care beds - regardless of whether or not those are needed for other purposes. The people who will pay the price for this? Those who find themselves in need of hospital care for any reason and are unfortunate enough to live in Calgary or Edmonton.

Stelmach and Liepert: Starve HealthCare

Remember the 1980s, and 1990s? You know, when Alberta's governments closed down - and did not replace - a big chunk of the hospitals in Calgary. The Grace, Holy Cross and Calgary General hospitals all fell under the government's axe. It's only been in the last few years that any effort at all has been made to start replacing the beds that were sacrificed at that time.

Now, we find that the Stelmach government is going to open the expansion at the Peter Lougheed Hospital but not fund actually operating the beds - instead beds in other parts of the hospital will be closed. I imagine the same stunt will turn the South Calgary Hospital into a white elephant.

The government cries poverty, yet it has been crying poverty over health care even when revenues were at record highs. It also ignores the fact that since the Klein government blew up the General, Calgary's population has grown to over 1,000,000 residents. Meanwhile, it has only been in the last few years that infrastructure spending has even begun to even start to catch up with the demand on the system. Calgary's EMS system has run at critically low levels many times over recent years because there weren't sufficient beds and staff in the emergency rooms for Paramedic crews to turn patients over to.

Meanwhile, we have Ron Liepert's Health Superboard awarding itself astonishing salary increases, and Liepert appointing a panel to "review" health care once again at taxpayer's expense. They are increasing the overhead costs in the health care system without actually improving the availability of care.

Meanwhile, Stelmach continues to all but give away Alberta's resources to big business, and "refuses" to consider any changes to taxation on either an individual or corporate level.

Let's Talk About Fiscal Responsibility, Shall We?

So...now we know where the money cut from treatment services this spring is going: Executive compensation for Liepert's "Superboard":

A former deputy minister who helped create Alberta Health Services, then ran part of it for nine months, walked away from the cash-strapped department with a $257,500 bonus as part of her severance package.

The severance deal for Paddy Meade, whose position with Alberta Health Services ended after about nine months, included two years' worth of salary (about $1 million), and a$257,500 bonus, the maximum amount possible in her contract.

Excuse me? But that's beyond offensive - especially when the government is crying poverty and running about cutting services. Seems to me that cutting executive compensation would be one heck of a good place to start - instead of going after treatment options for citizens.

Oh - wait - this is Alberta...it's no longer Government by the people for the people here. It's become government by the Con$ for the benefit of the Con Arti$t$.

Governance By Ideology

In Alberta, the Conservative government has been in power so long that they have lost sight of the practical realities of government, and in particular the need to be flexible in coming up with policies to deal with difficult situations.

First up, we have Ed "I won't raise taxes" Stelmach whining about how it's going to be "long and painful" getting out of the fiscal hole that the PC's are busy digging for taxpayers.

Stelmach has vowed there will be no tax increases or new levies introduced as the government scrambles to balance the books, and reiterated government spending will be reined in.

"We will tighten our belt further," he said.

Right...so "Steady Eddie" is going lean entirely on standard neo-Conservative dogma about taxation and take a primary tool of government off the table - taxation.

During the 90's and early 2000's, Ralph Klein took advantage of burgeoning royalties from the energy sector, and proceeded to chop taxes. That's all well and good, except that it leaves the government fiscally starved the moment that energy prices fall. (which they have)

Instead of investing the surplus revenues in the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund, Klein mostly burned the money, and put a dribble here and there into his own "Sustainability Fund" - all the while draining any gains from the AHSTF. Had the Trust Fund been allowed to grow as it should have during the recent boom years, it would be worth a lot more than it is today, and much more than the $12bn "sustainability fund". But Klein, and now Stelmach, are far to short-sighted to understand this concept.

Then we get the government talking about "belt tightening". That always sounds good to the public - mostly because the public memory in this province is disastrously short term, and few people remember the consequences for Albertans from Ralph's early years, or the disastrous cuts that Getty imposed on areas like education.

Add to this the announcement yesterday from the Alberta Health Superboard that they are going to "cut jobs to improve service".

Currently, the health system faces a $1.3-billion deficit and has long surgical and emergency waiting times. It aims to have a balanced budget and reduced waiting times in three to four years. Part of those cost savings must focus on the workforce, since 70 per cent of the budget is spent on human resources, Duckett said.

Wait a second here. Health care delivery is primarily done with people - lots of them. Whether we are talking about nurses, doctors, clinical technicians, laboratory technicians, there's a lot of people that need to be present to analyze, diagnose and treat patients. You aren't likely to improve service by axing people.

... one might consider the massive pay hike that the "superboard" voted itself as the first place they should start cutting.

At least the UK government has looked at its NHS and published an extensive program of reform and funding change where the public can read and understand it.

Instead, in Alberta we have a government that is so used to being unaccountable to its citizens that it keeps its plans secret, only to drop it on us at the last possible minute - just as they did with the 2009/10 budget, where they conveniently chose to announce that a large number of health care services were being arbitrarily delisted.

No rationale, no chance for public input, no explanations whatsoever - the axe just fell.

This is not government, it is dictatorship. Sadly, it is dictatorship by the mendacious, and I have little faith that there is anything resembling actual thought going into the picture.

PFOX - Your Source for Lies and Distortion

This time, PFOX has opened its yap about the bogeyman of having taxpayer-funded gender surgery available in the United States:

if the proposed federal health insurance will cover sex-change surgeries, hormone treatment, etc. for Gender Identity Disorder as opposed to therapy.

This is one of those typical lies that we see from the "pray away the gay" crowd. The key phrase is "as opposed to". This leaves it open to the reader to understand that Gender Surgery would somehow be available apart from appropriate psychological counselling.

If PFOX was even marginally honest with their readers, they would have acknowledged that the WPATH Standards of Care are entirely based on access to surgery only with a psychologist or psychiatrist's recommendation.

In fact, section X of the SOC is quite unambiguous about the triad of treatments required for "profound GID":

In persons diagnosed with transsexualism or profound GID, sex reassignment surgery, along with hormone therapy and real-life experience, is a treatment that has proven to be effective. Such a therapeutic regimen, when prescribed or recommended by qualified practitioners, is medically indicated and medically necessary.

As an aside, Gender Reassignment Surgery is probably the only medical procedure in the world that requires the patient to prove to not one, but two professionals besides the surgeon that they are in fact in complete control of their faculties.

But, then again, it's not like I haven't caught PFOX with their proverbial pants down before, either.

p.s. PFOX links to a very heart-breaking story of an "Ex-Transgender". I don't want to dismiss his narrative as invalid, for it is not. However, he is exactly the kind of patient that the SOC is designed to weed out before they get to surgery. The long term literature is clear - those few who need GRS benefit from it.

Medical Treatment Should Never Be About Popularity

In recent weeks, the shrieking out of the right wingnuts over the idea of the US government actually implementing a meaningful taxpayer funded medical system has been alternating between stupid and funny.

Until two of the loonier members of America's right wing - Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera decided to weigh in.

I could give their joint idiocy a detailed analysis - but it boils down to one fundamental point that is worth addressing.

Both men seem to have a problem with the idea that providing treatment to transsexuals shouldn't be done. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that they don't merely argue against treatment funded by taxpayers, but in fact both argue against any kind of meaningful treatment.

And yes, the idea of subsidizing body-disfiguring “operations” surely would be considered “queer” by the average tax-paying American.

“Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) may also be provided – free of charge – courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. The current price tag for such a procedure can exceed $50,000.

This falls into the classic trap of making access to needed medical treatment conditional upon the "charisma" of the condition, instead of talking about the best interests of the patient. Transsexuality will never be a "charismatic" condition - it's far enough from so many people's understanding that it seems unlikely to ever have "popular support".

However, using that kind of approach for one treatment means it can be used for others. Let me illustrate. In the last thirty years or so smoking has become quite the social evil. Smoking has two well known consequences - emphysema and lung cancer. Can you imagine having either of these conditions, and finding that your access to treatment is based suddenly on how much public sympathy there is for ex-smokers with emphysema?

That is essentially what many people are arguing when they make statements like "I don't think my tax dollars should pay for that".

Access to medical treatment - when medically necessary - should never be conditional on public opinion. This is as true in Canada as elsewhere. Using minority populations as political footballs is despicable, bordering on criminal.

Calgary Is Being Punished By Stelmach

The mendacity of the Stelmach tories continues to unfold in Alberta. The latest example comes to us in the form of a refusal to fund a piece of equipment for prostate surgeries.

Two veteran Tory MLAs are taking issue with the government-created health superboard's move not to fund Calgary's only surgery laser for enlarged prostates, with one branding it a "dumb decision."

The specialized laser was packed up Friday at Rockyview Hospital after the Alberta Health Services superboard said it won't pay to operate the $100,000 machine.

At the Alberta Progressive Conservative policy convention Saturday in Calgary, several city MLAs --including Health Minister Ron Liepert--said it wasn't their role to micromanage the board.
...
There are two such lasers in the Edmonton area, and one each in Grande Prairie and Medicine Hat.

Liepert's attempt to sidestep by saying that it was a decision of the "Superboard" doesn't wash. That superboard is a bunch of appointees that Liepert and Co. brought together in the first place. Second of all, this Superboard is not running a crown corporation on behalf of the crown, it is running a part of the civil service, funded entirely by the government. As such it is unquestionably directly accountable to the government. To claim an "arm's length" relationship when no such thing exists is beyond obscenely dishonest.

Actions speak louder than words,and the Stelmach government's actions to date create a significant case for a governing party that was deeply offended when Calgarians sent something other than a branded conservative to the legislature. With respect to health care in general, Liepert has shown himself to be intransigent, dogmatic and arrogant - reflecting the attitude that Blackett showed us on election day when he mused that "with such a huge majority, they could do whatever they liked".

The unlike Premier Lougheed, who took a landslide majority in the late 70s, and rightly observed that such majorities are treacherous territory for any governing party, Stelmach and his crew have long lost sight of the wisdom of Lougheed's caution - and Albertans will pay the price for the arrogance and hubris we are seeing out of a government that is out of control.

Bill 48 - Liepert's Next Nail In Health Care's Coffin

I'm going to have to disagree with Mr. Chapman's analysis of Bill 48.

It's not that I don't think that he has made some interesting points. Far from it, in fact. Superficially, Bill 48 goes after big tobacco, criminals, the auto insurance industry etc. Doesn't sound too bad, does it? After all, why shouldn't, for example, a criminal be held responsible for any health care costs incurred as a result of criminal activity, or a tobacco company for selling a product known to be harmful?

But step back from this for a moment, and consider the implications, and in particular how this can - and will - trickle down to the individual taxpayers in Alberta.

For example, consider the case of a criminal who either injures someone - or is injured - in the commission of a crime. Does anybody really believe that these people have a bag of money set aside to pay the medical costs related to whatever damage their activities cause? They do not, and are unlikely to ever repay those costs.

As for automobile insurance paying for injuries sustained in a collision, we already know how that is going to work. If you have an accident that results in a claim today, you can fully expect your insurance rates to go up enough that the insurance company will recoup whatever it paid out on your behalf over the next two to three years. Make no mistake about it, if the insurance carriers think they are going to be stuck with any medical treatment costs related to that accident, they will increase premiums at the outset, and the rate spike related to an accident will make what we see today look absolutely trivial.

Which brings me to the real issue that I have with this bill. It takes Health Care into the world of being a "cost recovery model", where the costs are immediately downloaded to whatever third party is deemed "liable" for those costs. Ultimately, it will result in either no useful recovery (as in the case of criminal liability), or the costs will be passed onto consumers in Alberta quite directly through increased insurance premiums. As a taxpayer, I'm already paying into the health care pot to begin with, and in many ways, this will result in me paying not once, but twice.

The second issue I have to raise as an objection to this legislation is the "what were you doing" exception made for criminals:

34 If a person convicted of an offence provided for in the
regulations, under legislation specified in the regulations, receives
health services for personal injuries suffered in the commission of
that offence, the Crown has the right to recover from the convicted
person the Crown’s costs of health services.

At first, this seems innocent enough. If you are a criminal, and you get hurt in the commission of a crime, you pay the freight for your health care. On further consideration though, this starts to sound like the myriad of exclusionary clauses that are seen in the US health care system so often - The so-called "Pre-existing condition" clauses that insurance companies use regularly to weasel out of actually paying for health care that someone needs. What Liepert has done here is signal that he intends to make access to health care in general conditional. Upon what, remains to be seen.

Liepert has already shown Albertans that he isn't willing to be up front with us when it comes to his agenda for health care. On April 7, he started unveiling his plans for attacking Albertan's health care by delisting Gender Reassignment Surgery on budget day - again using the tactic of an easy political target to put a veil over what he really has planned. Albertans have no reason to trust recent denials from the Stelmach government about what they will or will not be targeting.

The Clerk of the Privy Council

Darryl Raymaker has it perfectly summarized.

... and if you want a taste of what is to come if his prognostications are correct, just take a look at what Alberta is doing to its health care program and human rights legislation.

Burning Stupid: Colby Cosh Edition

I see that the bird cage liner called National Post decided to publish Colby Cosh's commentary on the Alberta Government's delisting of GRS.

Given where it's published, I don't exactly expect much out of Cosh's article, but it's so painfully obvious that he hasn't even done the most basic of research.

Starting off with the following:

Well, as it happens, they don’t; the only other province that was hitherto covering the whole tab was Liberal Ontario, which agreed to do so only after a human rights commission ruckus in 2008.

Ummm...no. This is dead wrong. Ontario is not the only government to pay for GRS. According to CPATH, as of 2008, the following provinces provided some degree of coverage for GRS: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador.

There is a strong bioethical case against the very existence of surgical gender reassignment, not that most members of the newly empowered caste of professional bioethicists would ever dare advance it. (Indeed, that there is not a louder debate about gender reassignment suggests that bioethicists are a virtually useless species.) The case against is usually made by Catholics, but nothing about it depends on any religious premise. It boils down to this: Gender reassignment constitutes the irreversible surgical mutilation of a healthy body — and thus violates the traditional prime directive of medicine — in the effort to correct a delusion, one which may be reversible.

Oh brother. I've heard this bunch of trash before - a few dozen times. Unfortunately, what Cosh fails to understand is that the very reason that WPATH exists today, and that Gender Identity Disorder is seen as distinct from psychological delusion is that it has long since been demonstrated that transsexuals are clearly NOT delusionary:

In Schizophrenia, there may rarely be delusions of belonging to the other sex. Insistence by a person with Gender Identity Disorder that he or she is of the other sex is not considered a delusion, because what is invariably meant is that the person feels like a member of the other sex rather than truly believes that he or she is a member of the other sex.

Of course, Cosh continues down his misguided path and gets even more wrong. This time by criticizing the evidence for GRS:

What is needed in the field of gender reassignment, as papers in that field point out ad nauseam, are prospective studies with randomized controls. So far, there don’t seem to have been any. One non-randomized study containing just 40 GID patients has been recycled with almost comic frequency.

Ummm...yeah...right Cosh. Of course you don't even bother to cite the paper you are referring to. I'll accept the criticism that most studies have very small numbers of participants - given the infrequency of the condition itself, this should come as no real surprise.

However, I will point you to Pfaefflin et. al., a survey paper that spans over thirty years of surgery and follow-up studies. It's amazing how consistent the findings are.

In other words, no scientific claim about the therapeutic appropriateness of gender reassignment is possible.

Bull. As commenters DianeG and Zoe in the National Post article point out, there is tons of scientific evidence both for the validity of transsexualism as a condition, as well as the effectiveness of Therapy, Real Life Experience, Hormones AND SURGERY in helping transsexuals overcome their challenges.

But then, writers like Cosh are among the primary reasons I call the National Post birdcage liner.

Positive Commentary From A Place I'd Not Expect

In particular, a columnist for the Edmonton Sun who goes by the name Yukon Jack, covers the GRS issue in terms anyone can understand:

OK, Johnny Hetero, roll with me on this one. You wake up tomorrow morning and all of a sudden you're a woman.

Everything about you mentally, emotionally is male.

You like to fight, spit, swear, drive truck, crush beers and belch.

You are a man ... man.

But physically you are a woman. Well, after a week of playing with your boobs, it would be terrible.

Your life would be ruined. There would be no getting used to it.

You would suffer depression, anxiety and stress about everything you ever do, and would have difficulty keeping a job.

Well, for a bargain basement price of between 17 and 70 grand the provincial government can fix that. Well, they could have, but not any more.

In an attempt to save 700 grand annually, Alberta Health and Wellness will discontinue sex-change operations.

"Why should we pay for something that can't be proven? Prove you shoulda been a woman?"

Why don't you prove that you're clinically depressed and not just lazy. We pay for that.

These people are not gay. They don't get their jollies in fishnet stockings and lipstick. This isn't a Thai Lady Boy.

Aside from the the obvious, they're normal people. They're not flamboyant, they're not confused, they're broken and we can fix 'em for dirt cheap.

This isn't cosmetic. A nose job, boob job, lipo, botox or collagen. This isn't something they've done to themselves, like lung-cancer-smoker guy, or severe-head-wound-quad-riding guy, liver-disease-alchoholic guy, or tanning-salon-skin-cancer girl.

If Bobby Bigot wants to make this a taxpayer issue ... news flash. They pay taxes. They pay into Alberta Health Care.

In the meantime ... I'll just shut my big yap.