A better economy means a better future for all Albertans
By Lethbridge Herald on May 19, 2023.
Editor:
I’m all for a fair fight. If you have an opinion, state it clearly and honestly in proper context.
The prominent tip of the spear campaign by the Alberta NDP quotes 17 words spoken by Danielle Smith months ago in a one-on-one interview discussing health spending accounts.
The NDP must have said, “now we’ve got her” because during the interview, Smith questioned whether or not a regular checkup to your doctor should be covered 100 per cent by AHC or whether some of it could be covered by a health spending account. 17 words were grabbed from that conversation by the NDP and used as a campaign spear by the NDP to strike fear into the hearts of all Albertans.
“Danielle Smith wants you to pay out of pocket for your healthcare. (oh noooooo! . . .my words).
There’s no basis in truth to the assumptions made by this party to the point where it’s a lie. Taken out of context, any excerpts from a lengthy and cogent discussion can create deception.
How short Albertans’ memories are when Notley reigned for four years and ran this province into debt and ran this province’s economic engines into the ground.
It seems to me their electoral campaign is deception as in, “Look here what they are saying, you don’t want that.” Well, I don’t want them.
A better economy is a better future for all Albertans.
Dr. Chuck Galambos
Lethbridge
12-11
Deflection from private healthcare from a doctor who makes a living from private healthcare? Pardon my skepticism.
Danielle Smith has consistently talked about her desire for Albertan’s to pay out of pocket for healthcare over the last decade. As late as this month Nathan Neudorf suggested fees at the emergency room (which is certainly busy – filled by people whose family doctor was driven away by the UCP). If you choose to believe she’s done a complete 180 on a decade of passionate conviction, that is your right, but I question your judgement.
As for “running the economy into the ground”, perhaps you’re talking about the lie that she lost 180k jobs? Even the worst dip during the NDP term amounted to 77k jobs and that was fully recovered and increasing by the end of their term. Or perhaps you mean the price of oil – if Rachel Notley single handedly controls the global oil price, then we certainly want her in power – someone with such far reaching cosmic powers shouldn’t be trifled with!
I agree a better economy benefits all Albertans – which is why we should run screaming from a loose cannon who is constantly debating the version of herself from 18 months ago! Who would invest with a leader like that?
Nathan Neudorf has NEVER said he’d charge user fees, and Daniel Smith has repeatedly said user fees will NEVER be charged. Health care will NEVER be charged for. The most efficient Countries (that offer free healthcare), have a blend before between private and government. There is far more efficiency in the private sector, and if an MRI (for instance) receives $800 for each appointment, then that is all the private institution will receive also. The private sector often has extended hours and some even offer an MRI 24 hours a day, cleaning up the tremendous backlog there is. Canada is so far down the list right now for efficiency in delivery and cost of Healthcare. Daniel Smith is modeling Alberta’s Healthcare after the most efficient models in the world, which has a large percentage of delivery being through the private sector. that is smart way to do it, but the NDP and followers refuse to look at that or acknowledge what a smart idea this is!
If you think for one minute that your party is going to be able to pay for private-for -profit health care costs out of our public money without it effecting our provincial and property taxes you are a fool? I agree with oilmen, lawyers, accountants and former MLAs, in the next oil industry crash you won’t have the money to do it, you will have to make the people pay. Did you bother to think about that?
Why was this privatization scheme created in the first place after all the whining by former health minster Tyler Shandro , tearing up contracts, hurling sarcastic comments at doctors and accusing of them of being over paid? Then your party goes ahead and makes the situation a lot worse with privatization?
“Health care will NEVER be charged for.” Right, unless you want an MRI done at Lethbridge’s private clinic where fees range from $250 to $750.
And as for Nathan Neudorf’s comments, here is what he said at a recent Election Forum: “My wife is here tonight, she’s an ER nurse, and often she works triage at the front window of the ER, and sees an awful lot of unfortunate misuse and sometimes even abuse of the health care system.” And then he said: “Maybe if someone had to pay for that, they’d think twice about going to the emergency for something that’s not an emergency.”
We find in Edmonton people are forced to go to emergency rooms because their clinic is closed or they don’t have a family doctor working there and won’t be accept, but these Reformers aren’t smart enough to think about that, are they?
You’re not going to like this then. Shoot the messenger time.
https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/ucp-says-ems-wait-times-drastically-improving-under-its-watch/article_80c0d254-f4e5-11ed-a849-137e8da1a5a2.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3IeZVWDbh79rYTqNqHqz4HZ6aJgQvKOCscxgvMrutKNNjrFyOTlczi_H8
Do you know how those wait times were reduced? Once you figure that out, you may better appreciate the old saying; There ain’t no free lunch.
Perhaps, this worth a read:
“UCP Damage Tracker. Follow and fight UCP decisions that affect you.”
http://www.ucpdamagetracker.ca
Of course the fools, mostly seniors, who are blindly supporting these Reformers won’t read it they can\t handle the truth, they aren’t man enough, are they?
Some damage. Read https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/ucp-says-ems-wait-times-drastically-improving-under-its-watch/article_80c0d254-f4e5-11ed-a849-137e8da1a5a2.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3IeZVWDbh79rYTqNqHqz4HZ6aJgQvKOCscxgvMrutKNNjrFyOTlczi_H8
Of course believing the lies the Reformers feed you is what you do best. Have you ever talked to any doctors or nurses about it, of course not?
Another way to express “A better economy is a better future for all Albertans,” is to say that a rising tide floats all boats. Of course that only applies if all our boats are in the same marina.
So, what will happen to a low-income person with no extended health benefits who has a chronic illness and they have no more left in their health-spending account? Maybe we should ask a dentist?
Health care will NEVER be charged for. The most efficient Countries (that offer free healthcare), have a blend before between private and government. There is far more efficiency in the private sector, and if an MRI (for instance) receives $800 for each appointment, then that is all the private institution will receive also. The private sector often has extended hours and some even offer an MRI 24 hours a day, cleaning up the tremendous backlog there is. Canada is so far down the list right now for efficiency in delivery and cost of Healthcare. Daniel Smith is modeling Alberta’s Healthcare after the most efficient models in the world, which has a large percentage of delivery being through the private sector. that is smart way to do it, but the NDP and followers refuse to look at that or acknowledge what a smart idea this is!
We heard the same lies under the Klein years when I was having coffee with two retired doctors who had worked under health care systems in Europe and they both agreed that privatization will never work in Alberta and we should stop trying to compare them.
First off we don\t have nearly enough doctors and nurses to make it work.
Secondly our populations aren’t concentrated like they are in Europe.
Thirdly, it will put many rural Albertans lives at risk because you will never be able to find doctors, and nurses dumb enough to work in rural Alberta if they can make more money working in these private-for-profit clinics and hospitals this scheme will create in the cities.
But as we have all seen reformers don’t give a damn about listening to doctors advice or caring about peoples lives, do they?
You are absolutely right. The seniors are going to be in the worse mess under Smith and guess who we see supporting her, ignorant seniors, and as my senior friends say they better realize that we can’t afford anymore food banks to help them out. They are going to have to become burdens to their families.
So while Dr. Chuck Galambos finds it smart to continue spreading these reform party lies that Rachael Notley created a financial disaster for Albertans the lawyers, accountants, oilmen, bankers and former MLAs in my world have told a whole different story.
I didn’t spend 32 with the Royal bank, working in 16 different branches though out Alberta, including one in Lethbridge, and managed 7 of them to become an ignorant 80 year old dumb enough to believe the lies these phony conservatives, Reformer, have been feeding us, so why is Galambos? .
Wouldn’t it have been a lot smarter for the good doctor to seek out the truth? The financial statements I have see proved that Notley was a hero and not the bad guy as these fools want you to believe. She was trying to fix the mess she inherited and spent most of the money on building 55 new schools we desperately needed, and we still need a lot more, and she wasn’t the one who created this mess.
Why is it with these phony conservatives, Reformers that it was okay for them, starting with Ralph Klein, to put us in financial ruin over a 25 year period, by giving away around $975 billion of taxpayers money to the rich by slashing taxes and royalties and dumped a $260 billion orphan well cleanup mess in our laps yet their supporters, like Galambos, doesn’t mention that? Does he honestly think that Notley was going to fix in only 4 years what these fools created in 25?
If I sound pissed, I am. After our family spend countless hours volunteering for the Lougheed and Getty Governments , and a brother in-law voluntarily flew the government plane for them and never got paid a dime, and Lougheed’s energy minister Bill Dickie was a brother in-law of one of my uncles we were all proud conservatives, and after dad donated around $30,000. to their party over the years, Klein almost killed him with his healthcare cuts. Even members of Klein’s own family tried to help us vote him out these ignorant Albertans wouldn’t let us. . We had known them since the early 1960s.
Does Dr. Galambos really think we are going to be dumb enough to support a government that is promoting Convoy Trucker criminals, and gun violence, whose leader Danielle Smith has been found guilty of breaking the governments rules, wants top kick out the RCMP, and finds it smart to insult us for getting vaccinated, to save our lives, by comparing us to Nazis, and is suggesting that we should sell off our hospitals and allow User Fees to be charged to us to access our health care system, putting some seniors in a horrible financial mess?
Can he tell us how rural Albertans are going to find doctors and nurses dumb enough to work in rural setting if they can make more money working in the Private -For- Profit hospitals in the cities that Smith’s scheme would create?
The conservative MLAs that I got to know considers Reformers to be the worse enemy of the conservatives and the people and they have certainly proven it, haven’t they? They are nothing like the conservatives we proudly supported.
How many times (if you’re SO smart), do you have to be told that there is absolutely no user pay for healthcare? The UCP party signed a 10-year contract with our federal government that states that if any thing is charged for healthcare; they will lose the funding! I have heard every UCP person respond repeatedly that there is no charge for healthcare but the NDP and their trolls can’t give up that talking point! It makes me sick. And Nathan Neudorf was not only voted in as the hardest working MLA in the province, he was voted the best MLA in the province the year following. He has done so much good for Lethbridge but not only here, in the province as well. It amazes me that anyone thinks that the NDP have been good in any way for this province or will be in any way! The NDP are a socialist government with reckless spending, like when they shut down all the Coal operations instantly. No phasing out those operations that had contracts attached that had decades left on them. Notley literally cost us billions and then she put in too much infrastructure that couldn’t be supported, costing us billions more. Now we have high electrical prices and Notley said they’re going to cap them! I guess they can because it’s all government spending and government ownership now anyways, which is exactly what the NDP does!
So how do you explain why your pals took the caps off after Notley put them on to protect us? The NDP hasn’t created anywhere near the “Horrific Mess” as Lough called that these Reformers have done or haven’t you been listening?
I would find some lawyers, accountants, oilmen, bankers and former MLAs if you want to know the truth, but i doubt you care? You can’t ignore the $975 billion they helped the rich cheat us out of and you certainly can’t ignore the $260 billion orphan well mess, so why are you. It didn’t happen in Alaska and Norway, did it?
So you support this
https://www.westernstandard.news/alberta/ucp-says-ems-wait-times-drastically-improving-under-its-watch/article_80c0d254-f4e5-11ed-a849-137e8da1a5a2.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&fbclid=IwAR3IeZVWDbh79rYTqNqHqz4HZ6aJgQvKOCscxgvMrutKNNjrFyOTlczi_H8
Nothing changed you still believe the lies of these Reformers, right?
Thats quite the assumption. I will assume you support her
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/licia-corbella-rachel-notley-cant-run-on-her-record-as-premier-because-its-a-disaster Worst ever
A few weeks ago a man told me that his brother was a doctor and he was waiting to see if Albertans were going to be dumb enough to elect Smith, and if they did he was leaving. It reminded me of what I saw in 2004. I talked to five doctors who were furious with Albertans for electing Klein for the third time and were leaving. One of them said it best; “Why should stay in Alberta and support my patients, when my patients refuse to support me against that tyrant Ralph Klein. I’m not going to stay in Alberta and let him abuse me any longer.” They were all going to the U.S.
They had talked to Canadian doctors who had already left Alberta because of what Klein had done to them and they stated that they weren’t happy with the American system but it was a lot better than working under Klein and they felt a lot more appreciated by the people than they did while working in Alberta.
So with Lethbridge having a huge shortage of Doctors already are you going to be willing to give up more under Daniele Smith?
All went to the USA where they could get out from under the public system and into a system where they could charge what they want. How ironic.