Jeff Burgar
It is entirely possible we will have more doctors in northern Alberta in places like High Prairie, Peace River and Slave Lake, if our provincial government follows through on the ideas floating around the past year or so.

Possible, but unless somebody can explain the thinking, it seems very, very unlikely.

Health costs are rising in our lovely province by about six per cent per year. Some of this is to be expected. Alberta’s population grows. The number of births and people moving into Alberta far outweigh those dying or moving out. Alberta has for many years had the strongest growth rate in all of Canada, and will likely have, if not the highest, certainly one of the highest in coming years.

This runs between 1.8 and 2.8 per cent per year. So let’s call it 2.3 per cent. Add to this the average Alberta inflation rate. Since 1979, according to inflationcalculator.ca, Alberta inflation has averaged 3.2 per cent. Inflation and growth added together make 5.5 per cent.

So basically, it seems there is panic afoot over a half of one per cent increase per year – the difference between 5.5 and six per cent!

As a U.S. government official said once, “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.”

It will take several years, but a half-per cent increase every year will indeed one day turn into real money, but don’t ask any senior citizen living on a fixed income if they agree with that thinking!

No matter. Payments to doctors are seen as one of the main culprits in rising costs. So, both government officials and the Alberta Medical Association have come up with ideas to rein in spending on doctors. The AMA suggests capping the number of patients a doctor can see. Politicians suggest capping the number of doctors in Alberta.

The AMA plan suggested the cap would be six patients an hour. Presumably, this is supposed to stop doctors from shuttling through patients like an assembly line, racking up visits and dollars willy-nilly. If indeed this happens, maybe a better thought is seek out those doctors and have a heart-to-heart discussion about service levels the public deserves.

Meanwhile, capping the number of doctors implies politicians have never heard of the Law of Supply and Demand. Put another way, one does not reduce the price of a home by limiting the number of companies building homes. More competition in the long run reduces prices and improves quality, often at the same time.

North America has already flirted with the idea there are too many doctors. Decades ago, it was conventional wisdom the way to cut health care costs was stop training doctors. To this day, there is a doctor shortage, not a surplus. If anything, the idea should be to train as many as possible. Further to that, make it easier for foreign trained doctors to come to Canada, Alberta, and High Prairie.

That some seemingly bad ideas have currency while other ideas languish indicates nobody is really serious about fixing rural and northern Alberta problems.