For Immediate Release March 15, 2006
Government’s own poll
shows Albertans don’t
want for-profit health care
Earlier UNA poll reaffirmed
The government’s poll released today shows Albertans are NOT being fooled about the “Third Way”, says the United Nurses of Alberta. UNA is also re-releasing its own poll from last fall which showed that Albertans strongly oppose relying on more private insurance and more for-profit health care.
“The government seems to be grasping at straws in desperation,” says UNA President Heather Smith. “Attempting to spin their poll into a message that Albertans want the “Third Way” is ridiculous,” she says.
The government’s poll showed that most Albertans equate the “Third Way” with privatization of health care and it also showed they do NOT support privatization. For example the poll showed that 78% of Albertans want all health care services covered under the Canada Health Act to be delivered through publicly-owned facilities and paid for by Alberta Health, 54% strongly agreeing.
UNA’s poll of 402 Albertans that was fielded last October by Viewpoints Research of Winnipeg showed that 79.8% agree that “Private insurance companies are more concerned about making profits than about paying for the medical services people need. That’s a good reason for me to oppose the Alberta government’s plan.”
It also showed that 70.9% of Albertans DO NOT agree that “To ensure more patients are treated, doctors should be allowed to bill both the public health system and to bill some patients privately at a higher rate.”
“The two key components of the “Third Way” are allowing doctors to work both inside and outside medicare and to allow private insurance for services now covered by medicare,” says Heather Smith. “These are essential steps in the growth of what the government sees as a profitable health care “industry” but Albertans profoundly disagree with this commercialization of needed health services,” she says.
“This government has to stop trying to push on Albertans something they don’t need and don’t want and that their own experts say is a costly plan,” says Heather Smith. “The government has made the wrong diagnosis and has prescribed the wrong treatment. It’s a bad medicine Albertans will refuse to take,” she said.
--30—
| 
