Aging Seniors
You cost the health system money? Watch out. You're in the government's crosshairs.
Another tax hike? Another cut in services?The government knows it has to make some
very unpopular decisions.
We've seen the stats. We've heard the mantra: An aging population will suck the life
blood out of the health system.
Let's examine that a little more carefully. Government likes to blame baby boomers for
this impending crisis.
Once we retire, once we stop paying the kind of taxes we pay now, the system won't be
able to afford to support us in the same way our tax dollars have supported everyone
else.
Should there be a means test, so "high-income seniors" don't get their drugs paid for
through the government's Ontario Drug Benefit Program.
This is the thin edge of the wedge. It will be high income today — and tomorrow
middle-class seniors will get axed from the plan.
Health, as a percentage of provincial program spending, will reach almost 80% by 2030 if
it continues at the current rate. So if you want roads, social services and education,
something has to give.
The federal government cut back transfer payments to the provinces in the mid-1990s.
"I think it was a deeply unsatisfactory experience, in a sense, in that we saw
governments, in a panic mode, just take out money without doing the reforms.
I am concerned about the health-care system from a fiscal sustainability basis.
Among the 10 controversial recommendations, the way hospitals are funded.
Two-thirds of physicians are paid on a fee-for-service basis.Should more doctors go on
salary or be paid on a "capitation" basis — a system that pays on a per-patient basis,
rather than per visit.
Except that's nothing new. I know previous governments have considered both capitation
and salaries for doctors.
They didn't go that route because the province's physicians are a political force to be
reckoned with. Wait for the howls of protest.
Then, of course, there's the old chesmut about getting people to eat right, quit smoking
and exercise, so we have a healthier society.
Isn't that just delaying the inevitable? We're all going to die sometime. If you smoke,eat,
or drink your brains out and drop dead of a heart attack at 50, aren't you actually saving
the health system money?
Another tax hike? Another cut in services?The government knows it has to make some
very unpopular decisions.
We've seen the stats. We've heard the mantra: An aging population will suck the life
blood out of the health system.
Let's examine that a little more carefully. Government likes to blame baby boomers for
this impending crisis.
Once we retire, once we stop paying the kind of taxes we pay now, the system won't be
able to afford to support us in the same way our tax dollars have supported everyone
else.
Should there be a means test, so "high-income seniors" don't get their drugs paid for
through the government's Ontario Drug Benefit Program.
This is the thin edge of the wedge. It will be high income today — and tomorrow
middle-class seniors will get axed from the plan.
Health, as a percentage of provincial program spending, will reach almost 80% by 2030 if
it continues at the current rate. So if you want roads, social services and education,
something has to give.
The federal government cut back transfer payments to the provinces in the mid-1990s.
"I think it was a deeply unsatisfactory experience, in a sense, in that we saw
governments, in a panic mode, just take out money without doing the reforms.
I am concerned about the health-care system from a fiscal sustainability basis.
Among the 10 controversial recommendations, the way hospitals are funded.
Two-thirds of physicians are paid on a fee-for-service basis.Should more doctors go on
salary or be paid on a "capitation" basis — a system that pays on a per-patient basis,
rather than per visit.
Except that's nothing new. I know previous governments have considered both capitation
and salaries for doctors.
They didn't go that route because the province's physicians are a political force to be
reckoned with. Wait for the howls of protest.
Then, of course, there's the old chesmut about getting people to eat right, quit smoking
and exercise, so we have a healthier society.
Isn't that just delaying the inevitable? We're all going to die sometime. If you smoke,eat,
or drink your brains out and drop dead of a heart attack at 50, aren't you actually saving
the health system money?
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