EDMONTON – Alberta will receive more new money to spend on health care in 2014-2015, thanks to changes to the Canada Health Transfer program.
The federal money that’s allocated to provinces will now be calculated using a different formula than in the past: one that’s based on population. It’s something the province started lobbying for in 2011.
Then-premier, Ed Stelmach, said Alberta received less per capita in health transfers than the rest of the country. That was partly due to a ten-year deal signed in 2004 which took income level into account when calculating federal health transfers.
That deal has since expired, and during Tuesday’s federal budget address, Alberta’s calls for changes to the system were finally answered.
“Effective this year our province will see an increase of nearly $1 billion in our health transfers from Canada. This arrangement is fair as it recognizes our needs and obligations and it has been a long time coming,” said Alberta’s health minister, Fred Horne.
Friends of Medicare says while the change wasn’t a surprise, the amount was. The group believes our province stands to gain quite a bit from this latest budget. But there’s also reason to be cautious, it feels, because the new system will be capped by the country’s economic growth.
“And that’s always a scary thought when it comes to an essential service that needs to be there regardless of whether or not our economy has a downturn or not,” said Sandra Azocar with Friends of Medicare.
“People don’t stop needing health care when the price of oil goes down or the economy takes a downturn. It’s still a required need and we need to be planning for that accordingly.”
Azocar thinks the change will also create fragmentation within Canada’s health care system, because some provinces will potentially not afford to deliver the services their population requires.
“So how equitable is that?” she said. “It’s okay for Albertans to be celebrating right now but what will happen to the rest our Canadian population when they can’t afford health care? And that’s not the intent of our universal health care system.”
Friends of Medicare adds that it will be watching closely to see how the extra money will be allocated in the provincial budget on March 6.
Horne, meanwhile, says that Alberta will continue to push the federal government on other issues, such as the need for a national drug program.
You can see more stories on other areas the federal budget has impacted on our Budget 2014 page.
More to come…
With files from Vinesh Pratap, Global News
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