Thursday, January 19, 2012

The Politics of Health Care & Seniors...

With the Council of the Federation (Premiers' of Provinces/Territories)  meeting this past week about what to do after the 2004-2014 Health Care Accord expires - there has been lots of discussion in the media about the Premiers' request for more money for seniors' care and the like - you can read here (Province), here (Sun) and the Globe (here)

Meanwhile - former NDP MLA David Schreck writes an interest piece on how BC Premier Christy Clark "missed the boat" on discussing "tax points" to fund future health care costs - read here

In the meantime - I think a re-think of health care including what it means for seniors', young families and all between is necessary, given the current Canada Health Act was written in 1983 (30th anniversary to be celebrated in 2013) and written for a different era in health-care vs today with so many advancements in health-care technology and people living longer.  Failure to do so soon will see the bankruptcy of our current health-care system, as we know it.  And then there is the "other shoe to drop" and that is the unfunded liability of our pension system and if we don't address that very soon as well - many economists say that what we're seeing in Europe will be here well after 2020 when many of the current "baby-boomers" will reach retirement age...

Society, as a whole, has some difficult decisions ahead and we need to make those tough choices now and not later when those tough choices will become even more painfully difficult as we're seeing the consequences of delay in Europe who should have done these decisions years ago...

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