Re: Healthcare solution by John Kennair (Gazette, April 28)
To add to what John has already said. Over the past 18 years I have known two retired doctors who worked under a two-tiered health care system in the U.K. and both agreed that it would never work in Alberta. First of all we don't have nearly enough doctors and nurses to make it work. Ralph Klein made certain of that when he told them they weren't welcome in the 1990s. Secondly our populations aren't concentrated like they are in Europe. Their main concern was what it would do to rural Albertans. They knew that doctors, and nurses aren't going to stay working in rural Alberta when they could make twice as much money under a privatized system in the cities.
Yet Jason Kenney feeds us the lie that we don't have a revenue problem, but have a spending problem, and he has no intention of increasing taxes, or royalties for his rich friends. Instead he intends to fix everything by cutting billions off government spending by dumping a lot more privatization onto the backs of the people, ignoring the fact that when premiers Peter Lougheed and Don Getty were collecting proper royalties and taxes our public health care system was likely the best in North America. As doctors are pointing out it's just one more way for them to help their rich friends by giving them first priority to our health care system, while creating a nightmare for the rest of us. Why wouldn't it?
Alan K. Spiller, Edmonton
