Alberta faced a health care crisis of sorts in 1999 and both the dimensions of the crisis and its partial resolution have been chronicled by the Frasier Insitute of British Columbia . Please note that the ‘reforms’ have resulted in a dramatic increase in the public’s view of health care; but the nature of the reforms are toward privatization and greatly increased expenses. The reforms are still sparking controversy and signal the rapidly changing nature  of Canadian Health care:

Moving Beyond the Status Quo:
Alberta 's "Working" Prescription for Health Care Reform

Perceptions of the State of Health Care

Cross-national studies indicate that historically Canadians have been satisfied with their health care system (Blendon, et al., 1990). In 1998, however, public confidence in Canada 's health care system dropped to 20 percent from 56 percent where it stood a decade earlier (Donelan, et al., 1999). Published discussions by academics, press releases by interested parties, and media horror stories have undoubtedly increased anxieties among the general public. A synthesis of survey results by the Conference Board of Canada (CBOC, 2000a) shows that since 1993, concerns about health care have been steadily rising, and health care is now identified as the top national issue. Concerns about health care seem to be prompted by the belief held by almost 80 percent of Canadians that the health care system is in crisis (Angus Reid, 2000). Further, surveys commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association found that among Canadians, Albertans were most likely to cite health care as the most important issue leaders should address (CMA, 1999).

In spite of the political minefield surrounding health care reform, the Klein government has gone to great lengths to change the system—even though conventional wisdom said it would be "political suicide" (Farnsworth, 1995) to implement even the modest reforms of Bill 11. Contentious as these changes have been, Ralph Klein has not paid the price politically.

During the 2001 provincial election, both opposition parties tried to use Bill 11 as a means of mobilizing votes against the Tories. The results speak for themselves: popular support for the government increased, as did the size of the cohort on the government side of the Legislative Assembly. We have documented the reasons for the success of the Klein government elsewhere (Cooper and Kanji, 2000, ch. 5; Virani, Kanji and Cooper, 2000). What is important for our purposes here, however, is not simply to note the general political success of the Klein government, but to emphasize that electoral success has been accompanied by improvements in the general outlook of the Alberta public toward health care. Figure 5, for example, shows that compared to earlier years, Albertans in 2000 were significantly less likely to argue that the province had become a worse place for those who are ill. Indeed, over the past four years or so, the percentage of citizens indicating that Alberta has become a better place for those who are sick has improved by 17 percent.

Figure 6 shows that general satisfaction with the health care system has also improved: today, 3 in every 5 Albertans (62%) are satisfied with health care, which is a striking 14 percent increase from 1999. Within this group, the percentage of Albertans who are very satisfied with health care has increased by an astounding 16 percent. Comparatively speaking, Albertans today are as satisfied with health care as they are with other social programs, such as education and welfare (see Kanji and Cooper, 2001).

Theoretically, there are many ways of improving the economics of the health care system. The practical difficulty, however, is to find a "working prescription" for implementing politically risky structural reforms that at the same time improves general perceptions of health care and so maintains the political support necessary for change. The prescription metaphor suggests as well that, just as with medications administered to individuals, where the same pharmaceutical may have quite varied effects in different individuals diagnosed with the same ailment, something similar is true with policy prescriptions for the body politic. The treatment that worked in Alberta may not work elsewhere; the dosage may have to be adjusted to suit different needs and different political cultures. Even with all these qualifications, the Alberta example shows that it is possible to make incremental reforms to health care, improve overall satisfaction with the system, and at the same time avoid paying a heavy political price.

One could go on with current selections from the Canadian media about health care provider strikes, the move towards privatization in Ontario, and the politics of health care budgeting which has pitted health care against education in a number of Provinces; but the conclusion one can draw is not so much ‘crisis’ and decline; but how little even Canadians know about the dimensions and changes occurring in their mixed system.