CALGARY, AB: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation supports Health Minister Tyler Shandro efforts to identify $600 million in health-care savings through outsourcing, attrition and reductions in management bureaucrats.

“Today’s announcement is an excellent step to make Alberta’s health-care system more efficient,” said Franco Terrazzano, Alberta Director for the CTF. “Alberta’s businesses do a great job of doing laundry and preparing meals, so this is a no-brainer to help relieve some of the mounting costs to taxpayers.”

The Alberta government announced plans to save $600 million annually through outsourcing jobs in laboratories, housekeeping, food services and laundry, along with using attrition, to reduce 800 government jobs. Shandro also announced a minimum of one hundred management jobs will be phased out.

“AHS has a mixed model for laundry and linen services with approximately 68 per cent of services outsourced across the province,” according to the Ernst & Young Alberta health report. The report also noted that expanding outsourced services would “reduce overall cost of service, take advantage of modern, higher quality processes offered by the private sector, and significantly avoid capital expenditure required to maintain the current AHS operations.”

The Alberta government would save $3.6 billion annually if its per person health-care spending was in line with Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, according to the Blue Ribbon Panel on Alberta’s finances. The Alberta government spends more per person on health care than every other province except Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Finding saving through attrition, outsourcing and reducing management bureaucrats is necessary to find savings in Alberta’s high-cost health-care system,” said Terrazzano.