Canadians aren’t buying what Klein is selling

A new poll shows that Canadians aren’t buying Ralph Klein’s arguments on the need for radical health care reform.

Over the past few months, the Klein Conservatives have been saying that Medicare is unsustainable; that people are over-using or abusing the system; and that privatization and user fees are the only options for reform.

But a poll conducted by Ipsos-Reid in January shows that a clear majority of Canadians are still committed to Medicare – and that they don’t share the view that the system is damaged beyond repair.

According to the poll, 63 percent of Canadians (and 57 percent of Albertans) agree that enough money could be saved by cleaning up mismanagement and inefficiency within the Medicare system to fund all the health services that people require.

This contrasts with only 34 percent of Canadians (and 38 percent of Albertans) who believe the best way to fix the Canadian health system is to make people more personably responsible for the health services they use, which could mean restricting access to some services or charging fees to individuals.

Interestingly, despite all of Premier Klein’s insistence that radical reforms are necessary, the poll showed that Albertans are more satisfied with their health care system as it is than any other Canadians.

Forty-three percent of Albertans rated their provincial health system as either excellent or very good – compared to the national average of 26 percent. Another 45 percent of Albertans rated the system as good.