ron liepert on health-care reforms and watch gary lamphier get spun.

There's been a lot of talk since after the election by Health & Wellness Minister Ron Liepert about reforming Alberta's Health Care system (or as the Department of Health & Wellness website called it yesterday, Action Plan on Health 2008?2009). Liepert says that he's putting everything on the table, including privatization. One has to wonder why Ed Stelmach, Liepert, or any of the 82 other Tory candidates mention anything about these types of reforms in that little thing called an election that happened only a couple of months ago (and politicians are confused when people don't trust campaign promises?).

As the Edmonton Journal's Graham Thomson has pointed out, though Liepert is boisterous and gutsy in his talk about health-care reform, he has yet to show any real details of the Tories' proposed action plan for reform. One has to wonder if Liepert's health-care reform plan is just as rock solid as the Tories' plan to improve the image of their environmental record? Forgive me if I sound like we're just the victims of another round of typically predictable government spin...

Speaking of spin, I was a little surprised by Gary Lamphier's column yesterday in which he wrote about Albertans detestation of spin. While I don't think anyone "likes" spin, Albertans certainly haven't done anything to actively put a stop to the assembly-line factory of political spin that is the Public Affairs Bureau (in fact, giving the Stelmach Tories a 72-seat majority only seems to endorse it). Ironically, Lamphier's article seems to be either an innocent victim or accessory to spin as he demonizes all those nutty environmentally conscious Albertans who have a problem with Alberta's environmental record and the tar sands. I can see it now... Jeez, if only they'd take a brisk mid-night skinny dip in one of those nice tailing ponds up near Fort McMurray, they'd see it really isn't all that bad...