Health Care debate growing

     There was an interesting exchange on Twitter last evening between Doug Griffiths, (@GriffMLA) MLA  and Progressive Conservative (PC) leadership candidate, and Rob Anderson,  (@RAndersonMLA) MLA and Wildrose Alliance (WR) insider, about the "health care" situation in Alberta. While Twitter is not the best medium for a sustained, in depth debate, it was refreshing to see some potential political heavywights engaged in a probing examination of where we are and what might be done.
     One of the things that initiated the debate was Griffiths' recent suggestion that health care premiums be reintroduced.  Anderson countered that "premiums won't do squat to fix our system".  Griffiths conceded that "Health needs many [other] reforms" but wondered how we are going to pay for the ever growing cost of our present system.
     I agree that reintroducing premiums is definitely not an answer, especially if there is no fundamental change in the philosophy and processes characteristic of our present "system".  On the other hand, Anderson's contention that "family docs are All private providers competing for publicly insured patients", as an example that we already have an element of private enterprise in our system, suggests a superficial analysis.  There is a huge difference between competing for fully autonomous customers (i.e. where patients control their own funds) and "competing" for government funding, which is a political process.
     Perhaps the major problem with our "health care system" is that it has become entirely "political".  What does that mean?  Over my years of teaching political science, I developed an excellent definition of politics as "the struggle for the power to set the rules for a society".  The key word in this definition is "power".  There are many sources of power.  Among them are influence and money.  Influence can change the rules of a society by, say, allowing PC insiders to jump health care queues. Money can change the rules by allowing the wealthy to fly to the Mayo clinic for an MRI they would have to wait months for in Alberta.
     As usual, the key to understanding a situation is to "follow the money" and especially the power to control the money.  One of the most corrupting characteristics of a "political" system is that a few insiders are able to control the money of others.  Taxation, we need to be reminded, is the confiscation of one person's money by a state apparatus which allows that money then to be spent by others for their own purposes.  Health care premiums are simply another tax (i.e. confiscation of money).  One attractive element of the WR position is that it proposes "funding following the patient" which one hopes means that the individual would be able to control how their funds are expended. Such a system would allow more of the private enterprise approach which, as it operates in, say, the food industry, would allow truer competition which, in turn, tends to allow the improvement of customer service and product quality.  There can only be competition if there is real choice by "clients" who have true power to control their own money.
     On that topic, we need much more transparency.  Whatever happened to informing us about what money is actually being spent on our behalf in health care?  In the early days of "health care" we would get an annual statement of what funds had been spent on our account, itemizing, for example, how many visits we had made to doctors and the charges associated with each visit.  Why do we no longer get this information?  Who audits doctors?  Are we to believe that no doctor in Alberta ever bills for a phantom patient visit?  I haven't heard of one, have you?
     In summary, we need to re-examine our basic assumptions and processes.  The Anderson - Griffiths exchange is a mildly encouraging example of that.  I see that @RajShermanMLA has also challenged "any/all PC candidates to a healthcare debate".  The more we engage in probes of our existing situation the more likely we are to correctly diagnose its problems and the more likely we can prescribe some remedies that will lead use to a healthier economic and political condition in our Alberta.