Alberta asking private insurance to bid on all medicare coverage

EDMONTON (CP) - Health Minister Iris Evans says she wants Alberta to examine the possibility of having private insurance compete with the public health-care system.

Evans told The Canadian Press that she will be asking insurance companies to present far-reaching proposals to cover all types of treatments and health-care services.

The minister says a Supreme Court of Canada ruling last spring has opened the door to broadening the use of private insurance for primary health-care treatments, such as joint replacements.

Premier Ralph Klein has said in the past that Alberta is prepared to defy the Canada Health Act with measures that would reshape Alberta's health-care system to curb government costs.

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/news/shownews.jsp?content=n091368A

Sniff. Sniff. Can anyone smell election in the wind?

Boy will they be sad when we sell them off.

but I can't help it: I just don't like Alberta, and it's precicely because of stuff like this.