EDMONTON — Premier Ralph Klein's government used its budget Wednesday to sound a warning that health-care changes are needed this year to keep the system from collapsing.

Finance Minister Pat Nelson said health-care spending has more than doubled in Alberta in the last nine years and warned the trend can't continue. She increased spending on health in the new budget by more than $600 million, or 8.4 per cent, bringing the total health-care budget to $8 billion.

But she said she is planning only a 5.7 per cent increase next year and a 3.8 per cent raise the year after that.

"We're hoping some of the reform processes will start to take place to bring that down to a more reasonable level," she told reporters. "We can't keep going at eight per cent.

"It just has to stop. This system will crater. It won't last the decade if there aren't changes made."

Alberta budget documents say health now consumes 38 per cent of the budget - up from 30 per cent in 1995.

"This rate is not sustainable," the budget states. "Alberta, like every province in Canada, is facing hard decisions about health-care services and how they should be funded."

The budget calls for serious discussions with the federal government and other provinces.

"Alberta will not wait if other governments are not ready to act," the budget states. "We are willing to act on our own."
Klein has said he is ready to proceed with a number of reforms this year that could violate the Canada Health Act. They could include user fees and more private health-care delivery.

Health Minister Gary Mar conceded it will be a tough challenge to meet spending constraints in the next two years.
"It will help keep our feet to the fire. We will want to accomplish that."

Mar said he hopes to implement health-care practices from other countries that spend less money but get more for their dollars.

Heather Smith, president of the United Nurses of Alberta, called the remarks in the budget bizarre.

"There is no question that health care is sustainable," she said. "What is not going to be sustainable is a privatized medicare system that this premier and this government wants to impose upon Albertans."

Dan MacLennan, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, said the first places to be hit when Klein turns down the health-care taps will be nursing homes where people will be forced to live in abhorrent conditions.

"If they wanted to save $10 million in the future, they could have banned smoking in the workplace," he said.

Kevin Taft, health critic for the Opposition Liberals, said the government is not committed to public health care.

"They want to manage it through crisis, and, if eventually the system breaks, they will have an opportunity to rearrange it to suit their friends."

New Democrat Leader Raj Pannu said the government is using scare tactics to bring in user fees and health-savings accounts and to delist services.

Alberta families don't want to have to pay out of their pockets for doctor visits, drugs or trips to the hospital, he said. They expect the government to operate the system with the taxes they already pay.

There was also heavy criticism of the Alberta government for continuing to charge families $1,056 annually in medicare premiums. Alberta is one of only two provinces in Canada - British Columbia is the other - to charge annual premiums.

John Carpay of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation accused the government of "gouging" Albertans with what he calls the health-care tax to finance its spending sprees.