Danielle Smith wants people to get used to paying for healthcare

Danielle Smith pens a paper for the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.  In it she espouses (by name) “out of pocket” medical payments.

[…] once people get used to the concept of paying out of pocket for more things
themselves then we can change the conversation on health care. Instead of asking,
what services will the government delist?, we would instead be asking what services
are paid for directly by government, and what services are paid for out of your Health
Spending Account?
My view is that the entire budget for general practitioners should be paid for from
Health Spending Accounts. If the government funded the account at $375 a year,
that’s the equivalent of 10 trips to a GP, so there can be no argument that this would
compromise access on the basis of ability to pay

ALBERTA’S KEY CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES by Danielle Smith (p. 10)

 

For reasons you may speculate on, the paper is no longer available from the U of C’s portal.

(Danielle’s math doesn’t take into account the costs the UCP health minister agreed to in January of the previous year, and assumes GPs can have everyone’s problem taken care of completely within 15 minutes.)