Working families lose, collection agencies win with the Conservative government’s health care premiums scheme, said Alberta’s NDP Opposition Health Critic Ray Martin today.
“Health care premiums are a regressive and unfair tax that hurts low-income Albertans more than anybody,” said Martin. “The numbers don’t lie: when 44 per cent of the costs of administering health care premiums go to collection agencies, people are obviously having a hard time paying it.”
The document released by the NDP Opposition shows the government paid collection agencies $16,670,493 between 2003 and 2006 to collect health care premiums from Albertans. Payments to collection agencies accounted for 44% of the total costs of the billing and collection of health care premiums.
“Health premiums have created an ‘Alberta Advantage’ for collection agencies. Unfortunately, there’s a big disadvantage for the working poor who can’t afford the extra costs. Surely, we can give working Albertans a break and get rid of this unfair and regressive tax,” concluded Martin.
