Alberta's health reform should respect Canada Health Act, says Harper

It is all about choice
Alberta's health reform should respect Canada Health Act, says Harper: "Although Alberta's proposal lacks detail it would appear to permit queue-jumping by patients willing to pay for faster treatment, and would allow doctors to work in the public and private systems simultaneously.
Michael Decter, chairman of the Health Council of Canada, said his early reading of the Alberta plan is that it would in fact contravene the federal health law.
'The Alberta paper, if I'm reading it correctly, seems to propose a private, parallel system . . . and it is difficult for me to see how you can do that without violating the Canada Health Act.
He noted that Alberta's plan goes farther than Quebec's recently announced health reforms.
Quebec would force doctors to choose between the private and public systems, while the Alberta plan would allow doctors to work on both sides simultaneously. Experts believe giving doctors access to medicare patients as well as those willing to pay for private care represents a threat to the public system.
Quebec would give patients access to private care only if the public system cannot deliver the care within a reasonable time, while the Alberta plan lacks any such restriction.
'It looks as though they may be preparing to allow people to simply buy insurance for medically necessary service and that, absent some waiting list test, strikes me as unlikely to pass muster,'' said Decter.
Tom McIntosh of the Health Policy Research Networks said Alberta's plan, if it does proceed, does have the potential to undermine Canada's medicare system. "