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.

A Clear Lack of Planning

If you've been in Alberta for the past week, you will have no doubt heard about the disastrous fiasco that has been the H1N1 Vaccination Program.

As of this morning, the vaccination program has been suspended.

Let's see - we have a flu virus running around that in its most serious cases kills otherwise healthy people extremely quickly, the government at both the Federal and Provincial levels has been blitzing the media for weeks telling the public to get vaccinated, and the government opens "mass vaccination" clinics in the major centers. They expected what kind of turnout?

Then we get Liepert blaming the general public for turning up for vaccination - amid stories of supply problems and other issues. If this is the kind of wonderful planning we can expect out of our new Health Superboard, it's no wonder that Albertans are skeptical of this government's ability to tie its own shoelaces, much less actually govern.

People are scared - with good reason. When this virus kills suddenly, can anyone blame parents for fearing for their children's health? When the week that vaccinations began, a thirteen year old hockey player in Ontario got sick and succumbed to this flu within 24 hours, one can only imagine that parents got worried - and rightly so.

While I give full marks to the staff working at those clinics for their efforts to keep things calm and orderly, the Alberta Government, and Alberta Health Services in particular, get a big fat goose egg for their planning and execution. Four clinics in the city of Calgary? Please. Winnipeg has 12 clinics for a population half that of Calgary.

Calgarians were standing in lineups for upwards of 5 hours, and then getting turned away. This is a complete fiasco - the governments made it plenty clear that we should get vaccinated, and then they tell us that we shouldn't get vaccinated? No. Wrong.

Liepert screwed this up monumentally - and he gets to wear the fallout. Don Braid explains how badly Liepert and Stelmach have bungled this rollout.

But even if supplies were ample, the public health officials were on the edge of a crisis they created. They simply didn't supply enough access points to meet the huge demand they completely failed to anticipate.

In hindsight, it's almost beyond belief that they only set up 10 clinics for two million people in Calgary and Edmonton.

B.C., by contrast, will have dozens of smaller clinics when H1N1 vaccination starts for the public (high-risk people are already getting shots). So B.C. looks smart by holding back vaccine. I'm not sure it should; people surely have a right to the vaccine as soon as it's available.

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.

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.

Demonstrating Liepert's Arrogance and Ignorance

Oh, this is a real gem. It seems that Stelmach has had to apologize on behalf of a cabinet minister who has once again overstepped his boundaries.

On Thursday, Health Minister Ron Liepert dismissed the concerns raised by NDP Leader Brian Mason. Like Liberal Leader David Swann and Lethbridge-East Liberal MLA Bridget Pastoor, Mason was physically stopped from entering Government House as Liepert announced details of a new seniors' drug program.

"I'll speak to cabinet on Tuesday just to get the message very clear," Stelmach said. "I'm sorry for that. I can only apologize now. I'm not putting the blame on anybody."

"Not putting the blame on anybody"? What kind of apology is this? Liepert has grossly overstepped his boundaries and his authority. The man thinks he is above everybody else, and he responsible to no one. He's so scared of actually having to answer questions that he orders security to keep the opposition MLAs out of his news conference? That's beyond disrespectful to the MLAs, it's a direct attack on the very notion of democracy. (such as it exists in Alberta these days)

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.

The Wingnuts Heard The Dog Whistle In The Budget

I said cutting GRS funding was a dog whistle for the fundies.

Sure enough, as if to make my point for me, the following letter appeared in the Edmonton Journal:

Why don't we consider delisting abortions? Surely in this enlightened day, no baby should suffer annihilation just because the timing is wrong, or because proper birth control was not used. How many abortions are performed in Alberta each year, and how much do they cost taxpayers? I am not questioning abortion where the health of the mother or baby is at risk. But Alberta could be a leader in delisting this abhorrent medical procedure.

Judy Buddle, Edmonton

I'd hardly say that this comes as a surprise per se; although I still think it has more to do with a proposed series of amendments to the Alberta Human Rights legislation the Lindsay Blackett has been working on for quite some time.

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.

Oh Really?

So, Alberta's Minister of Health is starting to blink in the face of protest.

On the same day seniors protested a government overhaul of Alberta's Blue Cross drug coverage, Health Minister Ron Liepert said he hopes to announce changes to the proposed plan in the coming weeks.

Uh huh. Notice that Liepert still seems to think he can kick transsexuals under the bus. What he's really doing is making it even more clear that his delisting of GRS is an act of blatant discrimination.

... and inevitably the terminally uncreative conservatives in Alberta are falling back on their old false savings vehicle, Public Private Partnerships - you know, those wonderful arrangements where the taxpayer pays for the building, the operating costs of it and a landlord's profits for the first 25 years of the building's life.

Don Braid On Liepert's Future

I know I've written quite a bit recently about the Alberta Government's delisting of Gender Reassignment Surgery.

However, Liepert's mendacious plan for Alberta's Medicare system affects all Albertans.

Don Braid chronicles it, and it's not pretty.

So Now He's Assembling an "Experts Panel"

As if I needed more evidence to confirm my belief that Stelmach/Liepert's decision to delist GRS was done out of spite and malice, we now have Liepert musing about forming an experts panel to evaluate further cuts.

So ... Liepert felt completely qualified to delist anything to do with transsexuals - after all who would possibly want that ?!? ... and now he wants to consider what else should be delisted, so he's going to form an advisory panel.

Brilliant move, Mr. Liepert. Alberta's transsexuals are going to have a field day with that one when your earlier decision about GRS gets hauled up ... not unlike happened in Ontario a few years ago.

First they came for the transsexuals ... did you speak up? What happens when they come to you and yours?

Transsexuals In Alberta To Bear The Brunt of Liepert's Mendacity

Apparently, in Alberta, being a transsexual also means that it's your fault that the "Health Superboard" is in the hole to the tune of a little over $1 billion dollars for fiscal 2008.

Calgary Herald:

Today's budget also eliminates "gender reassignment" surgery, meaning it will no longer pay for Albertans to have sex change operations, saving the system about $700,000 a year.

The government hasn't simply reduced the number of procedures that they pay for, or the proportion that they will pay. No, in this case, they have axed it outright. This puts a lot of people into really awkward straights. Not all transsexuals have the kind of professional income that would allow them to pay that cost out of their own pocket - in fact relatively few do.

Similarly, I have to wonder at the long term costs of yanking funding for chiropractic care. Who is going to be most affected by this? Seniors, who are not only on fixed incomes, but for whom chiropractic care is often a vital relief from chronic back problems.

Then we find Liepert bragging about this:

The province's superboard received a modest increase in funding of about $550 million, bringing its budget to $7.7 billion.

"We are maintaining our spending from last year and are also able to give Alberta Health Services an increase," said Health Minister Ron Liepert, in a statement.

Think about this, while cutting $700,000 (less than 1% of the Health "Superboard" budget), the Alberta government brags about adding funding. Typical Conservative policy - when times get tough, attack the people who can do the least about it.

Accountability: The Ron Liepert/Ed Stelmach Interpretation

I see that Liepert's "health superboard" that was supposed to save the province all this wonderful money has just voted themselves an enormous raise (25%) at a time when Liepert and Stelmach are making noises about cutting funding for health care in this province (which they've already started doing).

Now, someone tell me how, in a time of economic contraction where thousands of Albertans are finding themselves suddenly unemployed, this bunch of bandits in Edmonton can justify voting themselves a raise that is so huge?

Calgarians Are "Whiners"?

According Ron Liepert we are:

"Damn it all, I'm sick and tired of people whining about not enough health-care facilities in the city," he said.

Since it's been under a PC government that Calgary's health care facilities have gradually been closed and not replaced, one might think that Minister Liepert just might recall that since the late 1980s, we have lost not one, but three hospitals - The Holy Cross, The Calgary General and The Grace.

Two of those hospitals were closed under the watch of Ralph Klein, and one under his predecessor, Don Getty. But, apparently history is lost on Minister Liepert:

Calgary has received its fair share of health-care funding --with $1.5 billion for several projects --Health Minister Ron Liepert said Sunday, responding to criticisms over the expansion at the Peter Lougheed Centre.
...
Liepert noted the province has funded expansions at all three major hospitals, along with a long-term-care facility and the East Calgary Health Centre, among other projects.

Which might, just barely, get us back to where we were when the Tories started closing our hospitals and not replacing them. Mr. Liepert, it's under the Conservatives that the current deficit situation with respect to health care infrastructure in Calgary started. It's taken you idiots the better part of 15 years to start addressing it in any meaningful way. Meanwhile, Calgary has grown from a city of just over 500,000 to just over a million people. Figure it out.

Liepert said the province, which gave $222 million to fund the expansion in 2005, had never committed to complete all of the floors. That project, he said, would be considered along with all of the other unfunded requests across the province.

We have a term for this kind of evasiveness - "weasel words", Mr. Liepert. It's amazing how something has funding and concrete plans one day, and the next thing we know, the contractors are suddenly being ordered not to finish the job because it's "unfunded work".

Remember, Calgarians, you elected this bunch of morons by not actually voting.

How Stupid Is Liepert?

I don't even know where to begin with this bunch of drivel from Alberta health minister Ron Liepert:

A squeeze on disposable income as the economy nosedives could lead to healthier lifestyle choices, the province's health minister suggests, including fewer addictions and less obesity

...

"Somehow we've got to get Albertans to accept more personal responsibility for their behaviour," he said.

"I guess I'm hopeful that if people don't have the money to spend on Jolt and booze and everything else, maybe they won't become quite as addicted."

Uh huh. Got it. So if I get sick, it's clearly my fault because of something in my lifestyle. Using Liepert's logic, the poor should be the healthiest people on the planet.

... and then there's reality: (as opposed to ideology)

"That's a blame-the-victim approach that has been consistent in the Conservative ideology," Swann said. "They fail to see the social conditions that are creating the conditions in which people are making poor choices."

Calgary dietitian Sarah Remmer also isn't certain less disposable income will lead to healthier food choices. "A lot of people eat fast food because it's inexpensive," said Remmer, adding studies have shown people living in lower-income communities are more overweight or obese.

Of course, Liepert also uses this to signal to Albertans that he is setting things up to dismantle public health care in Alberta:

Less prosperity may also lower Albertans' expectations of what services should be covered under the public health-care system, added Liepert, who's leading the Alberta government's major over-haul of the medical regime.

"We're going to have some tough decisions to make in the budget coming next year and I think people are going to start to say, 'OK, maybe government shouldn't be covering everything,' " the health minister said after his speech.

Coming soon - pay for it yourself healthcare in Alberta:

On Monday, the province is unveiling a new plan broadly outlining the government's medical reforms. The plan will focus on sustainability of the medical system, whose costs have ballooned to $13.4 billion from$4.6 billion in 1998. However, the thorny issue of delisting services will not be addressed then, Liepert said.

Several other health announcements are planned, as the province's Dec. 15 deadline for this year's reforms looms.

Anyone for moving to Saskatchewan or B.C.?