Private. Health care.
Put these together and you can be sure to get an inflamed reaction.
Some Albertans are sounding the alarm that costs are spiralling and could crush our health-care system – and want business to ride to the rescue.
Don Mazankowski, former deputy prime minister and head of Alberta’s Advisory Council on Health, says change is needed to address growing concerns.
“We (have) come very clearly to the conclusion that Alberta’s health-care system is not sustainable unless we’re prepared to change how we fund and how we deliver health care,” he told a national newspaper recently. The council was due to release a report on the state of Alberta’s health-care system this week.
About 29 per cent of Alber-ta’s $21.6 billion 2001-2002 budget is going to health care.
Health and Wellness department funding will jump by $737 million, or 13.5 per cent, this year and by $1.5 billion, or 28 per cent, over the next three years, according to the province.
Add to this an aging population and rising drug costs (StatsCan reports that prescription and non-prescription drug costs increased to $14.7 billion from $10.3 billion between 1996 and 2000 – 44 per cent) and you have a recipe for fear.
Privatization has been pushed by some as a cure for these financial ailments, but the idea of private business in public health care always sparks an outcry by opponents.
They quote different statistics. Figures from the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI) show that per-capita health-care spending in Alberta was $1,360 in 1986 and $1,393 in 1992.
The figures are adjusted for inflation, and did not move more than $51 up or down during the period.
Nationally, CIHI figures show that health expenditures accounted for 9.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1998, 1999 and 2000, down from the 1992 peak level of 10.1 per cent of GDP.
Where’s the out-of-control spending here? they ask.
But look back a little further and you will find that health-care spending was as low as seven per cent of GDP in 1979 and eight per cent in 1988.
Confused? You know what they say about lies, damned lies and statistics. But beneath the swirl of all the figures and rhetoric, the question remains: Is there a role for business in health care?
The issue has been such a hot potato that even those in favour have softened their language.
Today, when asked the government’s position on increased privatization, Alberta Health and Wellness spokesman David Dear says, “rather than advocating it, private delivery (of health care) is seen as one potential solution.”
In this week’s Special Report, Business Edge focuses on Health & Business. We look at Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) in the U.S., which were successful as non-profit entities, but suffered in the transition to for-profit businesses.Will the same pressures of profitability apply in Alberta?
We also look beyond the delivery of health care. Business has long been involved in medical research and we look into some of the research under way in Alberta that could change our lives.
We also examine some of the challenges faced by Alberta’s growing functional-food industry. Companies here are making nutritionally enhanced foods that they claim will improve health, and are selling them in Europe and the U.S. – but are forbidden to sell them at home.
Our coverage also includes a look at the award-winning work on the Alberta Wellnet, an ambitious project that could change the way health care is delivered.
