Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
It really hasn't, unless you're speaking only in nominal terms (which is useless given that inflation exists). 10 years ago total health care costs were about 10.6% of GDP in Canada, whereas now they're about 11%. So a very minor 3-4% increase in the face of a quickly aging population and the continuing fallout from COVID.
Whereas in that same time period places like Germany, Switzerland, the UK, New Zealand, etc. increased their health spending as a % of GDP by ~15% in response to their aging populations.
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We do need to spend more. But I’m skeptical that simply increasing health care budgets without structural reform will substantially increase capacity. One of the reasons the feds are digging in their heels about increasing health transfers to provinces is previous injections of funding have not had the intended effect of increasing capacity. Instead, it just gets consumed into the budget without meaningful improvements in metrics. So the feds want commitments in how the money is spent, while the provinces protest that they have sole jurisdiction over health care.