Affordability crisis is breaking our health system: A conservative case for smart investment

By Palliser Friends of Medicare on February 11, 2026.

In Alberta today, the sign of a broken social contract isn’t hidden – it’s in the line at the local food bank. That line now regularly includes working families with two incomes, people who play by the rules but are being crushed by the affordability crisis.

When hard-working households cannot cover groceries, the idea that they can budget for any out-of-pocket health cost is a fantasy. This crisis isn’t just straining pocketbooks; it’s setting the stage for the catastrophic failure of our healthcare system, and with it, any semblance of fiscal responsibility.

The strain is magnified for our most vulnerable – like seniors and those on disability – by policies like the well-intentioned “holiday gap,” where support cheques arrive before Christmas, leaving a five-week chasm until the next. For them, and increasingly for the working poor, January is a month of brutal triage: pay the rent, heat the home, or address a health concern?

This is where a push toward a two-tier health system reveals its profound economic and moral flaw. It mistakes the symptom for the disease. The disease is that people have no financial margin for health, and our public system has a severe shortage of professionals. New policies, like allowing doctors to split time between private and public practice, don’t create new doctors-they redirect a scarce resource. Every hour a physician spends in a private clinic is an hour taken from the public queue, making waits longer for everyone else.

The tiered reality is already here. In Alberta, you can pay a pharmacy for bloodwork to avoid a wait for a doctor’s requisition. You can pay for private diagnostic imaging, skipping the public queue to access equipment, a diagnosis, a specialist, and treatment faster.

The brutal equation is simple: the rich live, the poor wait – and often die waiting. Diabetes is the leading cause of amputations in Canada. A preventable amputation, born from delays in care and unaffordable drugs, costs our public system hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That’s the very definition of poor stewardship: refusing a minor, upfront investment only to be forced into a catastrophic payout later.

This is the equivalent of a family, struggling to afford gas, skipping essential maintenance on their car. The saved $75 today guarantees a $5,000 engine blow-out tomorrow. As a province, we are on the hook for countless “engine blow-outs”- advanced cancers diagnosed in the ER, mental health crises, chronic conditions that disable otherwise willing workers – all because we are rationing care by wealth.

Where is the wisdom-and the fiscal sense -i n this? The most effective and economical system is a preventive one. It ensures vaccinations, supports healthy living, and catches problems early through accessible check-ups. This is the foundational principle we have abandoned.

When was the last time our community held a Wellness Walk or a proactive Vaccination Clinic run by our local Public Health unit? That focus on community wellness, which kept people healthier and out of hospitals, has faded. The priority has shifted from keeping everyone well to managing who gets treated first when they get sick.

The conservative principle is clear: you get what you pay for. Right now, we are paying for the most expensive form of care possible – late-stage, emergency, crisis medicine – because we are starving the affordable, front-end care that prevents it. We are subsidizing human suffering and calling it savings, while allowing a private market to siphon away our limited medical talent.

The solution isn’t a parallel private tier for the wealthy. It’s a smarter, more compassionate, and truly fiscally conservative investment in a stronger, universally accessible public system. It means funding it to ensure timely access to primary care, diagnostics, and affordable medication. It’s about ensuring that the working family in the food bank line can get bloodwork and see a specialist before a minor illness becomes a job-threatening one.

It’s about restoring community-focused prevention so that your neighbour’s good health contributes to our shared economic and social strength, rather than pitting us against each other in a life-or-death queue.

Protecting and improving the public health system isn’t about ideology; it’s about pragmatism and fairness. A strong, accessible public system is the most efficient tool we have to maintain a healthy, productive workforce.

Let’s fix the affordability crisis and doctor shortage that are breaking it, not create a luxury lane that abandons the principle of shared well-being for all. Alberta’s future strength depends on it.

This column is produced by the Palliser Friends of Medicare

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