health care costs

The Globe's current series about medicare may perpetuate myths and dangerously unrealistic expectations. The introduction states that Canadians "need sustainable health care and to bring down costs in the $192 billion health-care system." However, [As David Dodge, former head of the Bank of Canada pointed out in a recent speech -- and I agree with him], it is not a realistic goal, given an aging population, to expect overall costs to come down, although one can and should try to lower the rate of increase. Moreover the argument about sustainability is disingenuous. Increased health care costs, can definitely be sustainable -- one just needs to increase taxes to pay for it and we have the fiscal capacity to do this. In fact, reducing public levels of expenditure will not likely reduce overall levels of spending on health care, but will only transfer responsibility for payment from public to private funds while likely increasing overall costs.

As jurisdictions like the Netherlands know, state provided home and day care, and thorough regulation of private health-care providers and insurers are among the tools required to control the rate of increase of health care costs.