EDMONTON — This afternoon, the government tabled Bill 11, Health Statutes Amendment Act 2025 (No.2). If passed, this legislation would establish an unprecedented model of two-tiered health care access in Alberta by allowing physicians to work in both the public and private systems concurrently, including charging patients out of pocket. This “dual practice model” would be the only one of its kind in the entire country.
“Nothing Danielle Smith’s government has done to our health care was promised in the election. Albertans didn’t vote for massive, chaotic restructuring. They didn’t vote for a two-tiered health care system, and they don’t support it,” said Chris Gallaway. “This government has no mandate to dismantle our public health care system. In fact, Bill 11 is the exact opposite of their so-called public health care guarantee during the election. This unacceptable legislation should be pulled from the order paper immediately.”
This is not the first time this government has amended the Health Statutes Amendment Act since the election: earlier this year, Bill 55 put Alberta’s public hospitals at risk of privatization. Since then, they have announced plans to move forward with private-pay diagnostic services and two-tiered access to doctors.
A previous Health Statutes Amendment Act (Bill 30) from the preceding UCP government laid much of the legislative groundwork for the current privatization of our health care, including proliferating private contracts and permitting physicians to be directly employed by non-physician corporations.
“The government is trying to sneak through massive changes to our public health care delivery while claiming what they are doing will make things better. But those promised improvements never materialize. The evidence is increasingly clear: the government’s privatization agenda is making access to care worse while costing us more,” said Gallaway. “Now is the moment for Albertans to speak up loudly to say no to American-style, two-tiered health care where the rich get care while the rest of us are left waiting longer or forced to go without.”
Friends of Medicare encourages Albertans to join the fight for our public health care by writing to their MLAs, joining our campaign and by attending upcoming town hall events in their community.
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