But, as the assemblies continue, week after week, their numbers will grow. The group will grow diverse, moderate Conservatives mingling with New Democrats and Liberals the elderly the young, the wealthy with the poor.

This was the story the last time Albertans perceived that public health care was under attack, during the Bill 11 debates in 2000. If Harvey Voogd, leader of the Friends of Medicare group has his way, the script will be the same this spring. The group will unite in opposition to a government that wishes to "fix health care for a generation" by shifting costs off to users who can afford to pay.

But thanks to media fatigue and the , there’s reason to believe that the defenders ofBut there’s reason to believe public health care defenders will fail, thanks to the provincial government’s propensity for clouding the waters of debate and media fatigue..

The "new" health debate

The context of debate has changed since Bill 11. British Columbia has announced it is willing to experiment with more private health care delivery, and Quebec has announced plans to lift a ban on private health insurance. In Alberta, a private, for-profit surgical clinic operates in Calgary, and some Albertans pay to get speedier access to MRI exams.

And while provincial governments have continued their piecemeal introduction of private health care, the media has grown tired of covering the battle that began over a decade ago. Last November, when the media largely ignored leaked provincial Health and Wellness department documents that explained plans to violate the Canada Health Act, Edmonton Journal columnist Graham Thomson explained the problem.

"We journalists have been issuing breathless headlines and stories warning of radical health care changes for the past five years, because Premier Ralph Klein has been promising radical changes since 2000," he wrote. "It’s a game journalists are getting tired of playing."

Thomson nevertheless predicted the health care issue could "blow up" in Stephen Harper’s or Ralph Klein’s face during the federal election. As it turned out, journalists were too tired of the health care "game," and too enamoured of Harper, to raise the issue during the campaign.

So, if you believe the media reflects its readers’ concerns and beliefs, public health care could be in trouble this year. If, on the other hand, you believe that the media is out of touch with the public, it could be the Klein-led Tory government, fresh from a lackluster election performance and touting controversial Klein-legacy reforms, that is in trouble.

The end of the game?

Klein, however, has always been adept at framing the debate.

Announcing the "Third Way" last year, Klein painted his critics as an "emotional" group that stands in the way of rational progress. The slight was more diplomatic than usual (Klein avoided drawing parallels between those who oppose private health care and those opposed to private licensing and registration agencies), but no less demeaning of his opposition.

University of Alberta Political Science professor Steve Patten says there is some truth to Klein’s statement, but that doesn’t mean the Premier’s arguments are any more logical.

"Some of the opposition is emotional. It is emotional because people, based on their values, are committed to our public system of health insurance. When they respond, they respond with emotions, because those emotions are a reflection of the values they hold," Patten says.

"At the same time that you can legitimately say the opposition is emotional in that way, you can also say [Klein’s] agenda is ideological. It’s ideological in that a lot of it is driven by a belief as to what makes sense that is independent of the evidence out there."

According to Patten, that means massive success stories, like a province-wide pilot project that slashed waiting times for hip and knee surgeries to 4.7 weeks from the average of 47 weeks, can be ignored, even by those MLAs who claim they are committed to "innovation," and even though such reforms could save money.

Cutting the rhetoric

Meanwhile, Brian Mason has been like a prosecutor trying to get a murder conviction without a smoking gun. The provincial NDP leader has accused Klein of mismanaging and financially starving existing health care resources to make private care a more attractive, even necessary option. His argument hasn’t been repeated much by mainstream media, since no "smoking gun" exists to directly support the claim.

Patten says the public doesn’t need to buy into such arguments to see the problems with the Tory’s health care plans. "Ever since the Mazankowski report, there’s been a notion that the health care system is fiscally unsustainable. However, some of the things that Ralph Klein proposes, or we assume he proposes, around insurance and delivery, have the potential to increase the overall cost of health care, while reducing the cost to government," Patten says.

In other words, whether the services are delivered publicly or privately, it is Albertans who will pay, through taxes or private insurance. And Patten believes the public is committed to the spirit, and personal savings, that public medicare provides.

"I still strongly believe most Canadians are interested in protecting the principles of the Canada Health Act, which are, essentially, a single-payer, public insurance system, with first dollar coverage [coverage without a deductible, or co-payment requirement] of medically necessary services," he says.

"If the opponents of things such as expanded private delivery, private financing, and doctors having one foot in both systems, if they can just get a little momentum, there’s potential for the public to really rally behind them. That’s where the public’s values are, and where their commitments are."