Another Look at the Health Care Crisis
May 31, 2010
A new report from TD Economics paints yet another grim picture of the future of Canada’s health care system if significant changes are not implemented.
After analyzing the situation in Ontario, Don Drummond of the TD Bank has proposed 10 recommendations to make Ontario’s $46-billion system more efficient, while maintaining quality.
Although the report focuses solely on Ontario, it has lessons for other provinces, including Manitoba. It also comes out against the backdrop of a looming deadline – the April 1, 2013 expiration of transfer agreements to the provinces that include health care. These cost the federal government about $54-billion annually.
Most concerning to the authors of the study (which uses statistics that are supported by Statistics Canada data) is the fact that seniors will become more numerous than children in Canada somewhere around 2015. In Ontario, left unchecked, health spending is set to rise to 80 percent of total program spending by 2030, up from its current 46 percent today. Other provinces are in similar shape, with health care costs projected to rise to about 70 percent of spending.
In the TD report, areas identified for change include the $3.5 billion Ontario Drug Benefit Program. It calls for “scaling back” higher income seniors so only those in need have their drugs subsidized. Currently, millionaire seniors have their drugs paid for, just like the rest of the population.
Another key proposal of the report concerns the way physicians are compensated. It proposes paying them not only for treatment, but according to whether the care they deliver is cost-effective. Other recommendations include promoting healthier lifestyles; expanding information technology use in the system; reallocating functions among health-care providers and increasing bulk purchases of drugs to lower costs.
Overall, the report aims at bringing the annual increase in government health care spending in Ontario to four percent instead of the current level of 6.5 percent.
These are challenges that are now being faced by provinces across the country. It will take visionary leadership to introduce proposals of this nature, and to make the drive for efficiency a successful one. However, the alternative – a health care system that devours resources at an increasingly rapid rate and makes other government departments suffer – is unpalatable and unsustainable.
Comments
Comments are now closed