Bring back health-care premiums, Albertans say

Albertans favour reinstating health-care premiums in the province by a margin of almost two to one, according to a new public opinion poll commissioned by the CBC.

Of the 804 respondents in the telephone poll, 58 per cent support reinstatement, with 38 per cent opposed.

"To have such widespread support for reinstating health-care premiums so soon after the Stelmach government removed them is surprising," said Bruce Cameron of NRG Research Group, the organization that conducted the poll.

"The rising political pressure from some fiscal conservatives to address the billion-dollar health-care deficit will only increase given Albertans' willingness to pay their own health-care premiums once again," Cameron said Thursday.

Matt McDougall of Calgary supports reinstating health-care premiums.

"It was really a pretty cheap premium that everyone was paying to start with so … everybody gripes about any money that they have to pay … but given the deficit, I suppose that it does make more sense for everybody to pay a little bit," said McDougall.

Results from the poll, conducted in mid-September, are being released as part of a series of stories on health care being done by the CBC. The poll is considered accurate within 3.5 percentage points, 95 per cent of the time.