Seniors are living longer than ever before in Canada, and as the baby boomers start to hit age 65 in the next few years, the “baby boom” generation will become the “elder boom” generation. Right now, seniors represent about 12.5% of the Canadian population; by 2021, they will represent closer to 20%, or one out of every five Canadians.
Already, health expenditures for seniors are disproportionately large to the senior population. Although seniors are only 12.5% of the population, they account for 42.8% of the total health care expenditures. Alzheimer’s alone costs Canada nearly $4 billion per year, and by 2031 the number of Canadians with dementia is expected to double. Furthermore, while the cost of caring for elders is relatively reasonable for those elders younger than 85, once seniors pass the 85 year mark, the cost of care more than doubles. This is a point of concern, as more and more seniors are living longer. In fact, by the year 2056, the number of seniors above the age of 80 is expected to triple – from one in thirty seniors to one in ten.
If you are a government minister, looking at these cost figures will make you swallow hard.
The Canadian government has not paid particularly much for long term care for its most elderly citizens. Access to government-funded nursing homes is challenging; wait lists can be up to two years long, but the care itself does not have a particularly good reputation. Meanwhile, most private long term care facilities are unaffordable for most families, costing anywhere from $40,000 to $70,000 per year. Public and non-profit nursing homes are certainly more affordable, but recent government spending cuts have made even these long term care facilities unaffordable or close to unaffordable.
It is fair to say that the Canadian health care system is in a state of crisis. It is easy to see that the aging population will put even greater stress on the health care system, and funding long term care for seniors in Canada will grow harder by the year.
What does the future hold for government funding for long term care in Canada? Will the government have no choice but to create a more privatized system of health care delivery – which has proven to be both costly and inefficient in the United States? Or will the government and its people find a creative solution for the ever-increasing cost of caring for seniors? Time will tell. In the meantime, caregivers of seniors in Canada (and soon-to-be-seniors) should live by one golden rule: use preventive methods to keep your elders in as good shape as possible, because by the time they develop chronic diseases, funding for them might no longer be available.
Tags: aging trends, Alzheimers's care, caregiving, Elder Care, long term care
