Lisa Priest and Karen Howlett, Globe and Mail
Affluent seniors being billed for their drugs. Doctors being paid according to the quality and cost-effectiveness of their care. Those are just two of the provocative prescriptions for a crisis in public health costs.
Without such profound changes, suggests a report released Thursday by TD Economics, public health care as Canadians know it is unsustainable. Left unchecked, health spending is set to rise to 80 per cent of total program spending in Ontario by 2030, up from its current 46 per cent today.
Other provinces face a similarly bleak fiscal future, with health care projected to rise to about 70 per cent of relatively discretionary spending, exclusive of debt charges.
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