When I was a kid, I leaned Reform, I voted for conservatives – There were many reasons, the primary being they talked financial responsibility, and making sure we leave a better world for our children.
That made sense to me – we should 100% want fiscal responsibility, and to leave the world a better place. 100%. The messaging was clear, and I believed them. Note that I said believed, NOT believe. I don’t believe them. I don’t believe they ever wanted to make the world better.
Private sector is more efficient?
Hard no on that one. Costs stay the same for things when they go private – but now, someone needs to make a profit. How do you make a profit? One of 2 ways.
1) raise prices
2) lower quality of service
that’s it, those are the only ways.
If we look at health care – let’s be clear, when the NDP was in power in Alberta, they didn’t do much to improve health care. They also didn’t actively sabotage it like Jason Kenney and Danielle Sith, and the UCP/TBA have, before and during a global pandemic.
But they didn’t make it worse. Now, they know it needs to be fixed, back to where it was when they left office, at the very least, the bare minimum. UCP aren’t going to, they want to sell the hospitals. Not for a profit, so they won’t have to care about them anymore.
Having private telecom and private utilities hasn’t made the services cheaper, it’s made them more expensive for everyone. Who benefited from that? Conservative donors (who now own the utilities). We have cost of service, cost of infrastructure, and profit margin.
Was government inefficient and maybe a little overpriced? Yeah, a little. Not nearly as bad as it is now though.
Cutting “red tape” is code for “removing processes to ensure things are done in a correct and safe matter to protect citizens”, that’s it. Protecting YOU and ME.
Selling off things Canadians owned was never about making them more efficient, it was about empowering their supporters, enriching their donors, and screwing over the rest of us. Public insurance is about protection, Private insurance is about Profit.
All the books are public record. Conservatives don’t reduce spending, they increase it – but they don’t spend it on citizens, they spend it on again, donors, friends. Cutting services to make them look like they’re being responsible, when they’re really just being cruel. For fun?
When you privatize health care, you increase costs, lower quality of service, and make it less accessible to people who need it. Don’t need it today, so you don’t care? You will. Sorry to say, but healthy people with healthy lifestyles catch or develop diseases. Not a choice.
God forbid you develop cancer, and when you go to the doctor, pay your $150 bucks to sit with them, pay another $350 for tests to find out what’s wrong, and they come back and say “we know what’s wrong, and we can fix it, it’s only going to cost you a couple million”
Now, perhaps your private insurance covered the exam and the tests, maybe they just covered it on the spot, maybe they reimbursed you, but when the private insurance adjuster sees “2 million” they’re going to deny your claim. Do you have 2 million in savings you can afford?
Maybe you have a great employer based plan to cover things like that, but dude, you have cancer, you think you’ll feel healthy and just go to work through it? Think again, you’ll be lucky if you make it to the bathroom in time if you have to pee. By the time you notice it’s BAD.
Maybe you felt a little dizzy here and there before, may have blamed a lousy sleep, or a stressful day, but by the time you’re concerned enough to go to the doctor? Normal life just isn’t a thing any more. And you voted away your free cancer care to save $300 a year?
When on top of that, governments lifting caps cost you an extra grand or three on higher insurance and utility rates already. Give your head a shake, we can’t afford the UCP, you can’t, I can’t, nobody can.
Do I believe conservatives want to be fiscally responsible, to leave a better world for generations to come? Hell no. They want to rape and pillage every dime they can, and fuck everyone else. And the current generation of Cons is so brazen they admit it. Listen to them.
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