Government Funding & Long Term Care — Ontario
The Canadian health care system is in a state of crisis. With health care budget cuts, combined with the rising cost of health care and the growing number of seniors requiring acute long term care, aging baby boomers have a good reason to worry about whether or not government-funded long term care will be around for them by the time they need it.
Despite the fact that our neighbors to the south have proven privatized health care to be expensive, amoral, and inefficient, the Canadian government may have no choice but to ask its citizens to foot the bill for their own long term care. Consider that already, despite seniors accounting for only 12.5% of the population, they take up almost 43% of health care costs. Just Alzheimer’s disease alone costs nearly $4 billion per year. By 2031, the number of Canadians living with dementia will double. And by 2020, the percentage of seniors will have risen to 20% of the population.
How is the increased need for long term care, whilst government resources decrease, playing out in Ontario?
Whether Ontario’s Ministry of Health should invest significantly more into long term care or not is a question for rival politicians decide. The important information for the average Ontario resident to know whether the government plans to continue to maintain it’s current funding of long term care, right now – and as will be increasingly the case in the future unless something changes – what will happen if they choose to reduce their funding on an already stressed system? Ontario residents should be aware that this is a possible reality, and baby boomers who are still in control of their own health matters should plan accordingly.
Tags: aging trends, long term care, Long Term Care Insurance, long term care Toronto, planning for long term care
