My Speeches

Motion 510 - Healthcare Statements

Posted on Oct 28, 2008

The Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member for Battle River-Wainwright.


Mr. Griffiths: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise today
to speak to Motion 510. You know, it seems very often that we wind
up talking so much about health care in this Assembly. Invariably,
no matter what we do when we start talking about health care, we
always get down to the costs of health care and how much that is.
I know that in the discussions, at least in the six and a half years that
I’ve been an MLA in this House, we always talked about how health
care premiums were a way for Albertans to know some of the cost
of health care, but I agree with a lot of people who talk about how
that really didn’t demonstrate to them what the real costs of health
care were. If they paid about a thousand dollars a year for health
care, knowing that the cost was three or four times higher than that
depending on the family and the amount they used health care, I
don’t think they got a real reflection of the cost of health care.
Now, I do have to say I disagree this time with the Member for
Calgary-Varsity. He had mentioned that a motion like this is
perhaps an indication that we don’t consider Albertans as being
responsible for their use of health care. I agree that Albertans are
generally responsible, but I don’t think it’s about whether or not
they’re being responsible in this case. I think it’s about whether or
not they have the awareness and understanding of how much health
care costs them so that they can be responsible.
It would be equivalent to not putting up signs that there is a school
zone but then handing out tickets when people go through too fast,
when there is no indication about how fast they can go. If Albertans
aren’t given some tool or some resource to make them aware of
exactly how much they are costing the health care system or, more
appropriately, what services are being provided to thembythe health
care system, it’s very difficult for them to make conscientious
choices – like when their son or daughter has a sniffle, if they should
run to the doctor to get them checked, or if they have a pain in their
back, if they really need to use the health care system – unless they
really realize how much those services cost.
I mean, very few people understand how much it costs to go see
a doctor or how much it costs for an MRI or how much it costs for
most any medical service. We still think all the time about how it’s
free. So it’s not that Albertans aren’t responsible; it’s that they don’t


Alberta Hansard October 27, 2008
1568

have the awareness. Whether or not they’re being responsible,
simply having an awareness of the cost could enhance that to some
extent.Now, Mr. Speaker, there are some challenges in coming up with
something like this, for instance the cost. When we’re talking about
health care going from $10 billion to $12 billion to now being fully
a third of the entire spending of the provincial government, you
always have to consider how much this cost is going to be. I like to
think that going online would be a fantastic tool for Albertans to go
and check resources, but believe it or not, most people don’t go and
check the Internet for anything. They’ll go look up stuff that’s
interesting, but they won’t look at their bill to see their costs or their
cellphone usage or any other bill unless they get it in the mail and
they open it up and it’s right there in front of them. So I would
argue that perhaps sending them an actual, physical paper copy of
what the costs are might be more effective in helping to enhance
their sense of responsibility and awareness of what the health care
system costs. Still, some resource available, whether it’s online or
a paper copy, would be better.

8:20
Mr. Speaker, every time we talk about health care – I have heard
this over seven years – somebody always makes the argument that
if we just spend this money, it will save us a bunch in the long run.
Sometimes I don’t think we can afford to save any more money
because we constantly spend more money to save a little bit. So I
have a real concern. I’d like to know more details about how much
this would remove from the health care system or cost the Alberta
taxpayer before we went ahead with it.
There are other challenges around privacy issues, which I won’t
duplicate. Many people have discussed that.
There’s also the issue of collection of data. Mr. Speaker, this is
not just about adhering to FOIP and making sure that we protect
people’s privacy but about whether or not the tools are actually
available to collect all of the data and to determine the actual costs
of all the procedures. In fact, I have been reading quite a bit about
health care lately, and I’m aware that the province has populationbased
funding for its health regions and for its hospitals, and then
there is some policy-based funding that attaches to that. We don’t
in this province adhere to activity-based funding. Unless there is
some formula for or some policy on activity-based funding, where
you know what each procedure costs and what each test costs, it’s
very difficult to do a full assessment and come up with the data to
know how much each individual taxpayer costs the health care
system. I don’t even know whether we have the tools available yet
to collect that.
I know we’ve discussed it over and over, and I know the department
continues to work towards drilling down to find some calculable,
rational cost for each procedure, but until we get to that point,
it may be very difficult to move toward this sort of system where we
send out bills to people, or at least receipts, to show them what they
cost the health care system.
Regardless, I do think the initiative has an incredible amount of
merit. Although there are challenges, I’m going to support this
motion and hope that it encourages the government to continue to
find some way to get information out to every single Alberta
taxpayer so that they’re aware of just how much money is spent on
their behalf and what services are provided so that we can help
manage expectations in the health care system.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.