{"id":532809,"date":"2026-03-13T03:09:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532809\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T03:09:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:09:05","slug":"friends-of-medicare-warns-of-american-style-healthcare-coming-to-alberta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532809\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends of Medicare warns of \u2018American-style\u2019 healthcare coming to Alberta"},"content":{"rendered":"

READ MORE: Alberta bill allows doctors to toggle between public and private pay for surgeries<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Galloway, however, tells Pattison Media that it \u201copens the floodgates\u201d to private health services and insurance, and that once it is here, it will be difficult to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re waiting on the regulations and the implementation of exactly how that\u2019ll look, but no matter how they move forward, we think it\u2019s a violation of the Canada Health Act, that it\u2019s two-tiered healthcare, and that it\u2019s bringing American healthcare into Alberta and into Canada, so we need to push back and say no before it\u2019s put into place,\u201d says Gallaway.<\/p>\n

He believes that this will create a system where those who can afford to pay for private health coverage may see improved wait times, but that everyone else will be \u201cleft waiting longer or going without because they won\u2019t be able to access care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galloway explains, \u201cWe don\u2019t double the workforce by splitting it into a two-tiered system, and we\u2019re already struggling to have enough workers to keep our emergency rooms, to have enough family doctors, and so on. If people are paying for access, the rest of us are going to be left suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill 11 makes changes to the Alberta Health Care Insurance Act, which would allow employers to provide their workers access to private health insurance through work benefits, and also allow more private options for drug plans.<\/p>\n

According to Gallaway, this will prompt the provincial government to \u201cclaw back\u201d what it covers through the public system, meaning that Albertans will be expected to pay out of pocket for more services.<\/p>\n

He says this has already been happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve delisted vision care, eye exams, they\u2019ve raised the co-pays for the seniors\u2019 drug plan, while kicking tens of thousands of people off that drug plan, the vaccines that people had to start paying out of pocket if they weren\u2019t under a certain category. There\u2019s been a whole bunch of examples of small things that are delisted or the fees have gone up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallaway refutes the government\u2019s claims that Bill 11 aims to create European-style healthcare, and instead, pushes Alberta closer to what Americans have.<\/p>\n

Medical debt is often cited as the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, as RetireGuide.com<\/a> claims that medical expenses directly cause two-thirds of insolvency cases.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey go into bankruptcy, or they die earlier, or we see those videos online now of doctors fighting with insurance companies, wanting to do a surgery and being denied at the last minute and haggling to get the coverage for the patient. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the road we want to go down. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s what anyone likes,\u201d says Gallaway.<\/p>\n

Friends of Medicare has been advocating against the implementation of Bill 11 to the Alberta Government, and is encouraging people to speak with the MLAs about this issue.<\/p>\n

The following statement was issued to Pattison Media by Maddison McKee, Press Secretary for Primary and Preventive Health Services:<\/p>\n

\u201d Friends of Medicare is a political advocacy group governed by the province\u2019s public unions. They routinely spread misinformation and hyperbolic predictions; it\u2019s misleading to cite them as if they were impartial or expert.<\/p>\n

The talking points are always the same, they compare Alberta\u2019s common-sense changes to cherry-picked facts from other countries and a theoretical version of Canadian medicare, not the real system that patients experience every day.<\/p>\n

Obviously, every health care system is unique. However, we are bringing Alberta more in line with other top-performing health systems, including Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Australia.\u00a0These countries all combine strong public funding with modern, flexible delivery models.<\/p>\n

This debate is not actually about dual practice. It\u2019s about whether we are willing to address long wait times, workforce shortages, and capacity challenges that patients experience every day. Maintaining the status quo won\u2019t deliver more timely care, and Albertans deserve better.<\/p>\n

We remain committed to upholding Alberta\u2019s Public Health Care Guarantee; our priority is the public system, and we want to ensure that no one ever has to pay out of pocket for medically necessary care.<\/p>\n

Dual practice does not violate the Canada Health Act. The Act is silent on private practice operating outside the public system, and opt-out and dual-practice models in Alberta and other provinces have never been found to breach it. At the same time, the province is strengthening the public system and improving access for all Albertans, while allowing limited additional choice for some physicians and patients\u2014subject to strict conditions to protect publicly funded services.<\/p>\n

Finally, the scope is narrow. Dual practice applies only to a limited range of scheduled surgeries. It does not apply to cancer care, other lifesaving treatments, or emergency services.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READ MORE: Alberta bill allows doctors to toggle between public and private pay for surgeries Galloway, however, tells…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-532809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}