Younger Generation worried

[Jack Weber]

Everyone should be worried, and everyone will be f'ed when the poop really starts to hit the fan. I'll be paying crazy taxes for my boomer parents to receive health care. I won't be able to find a long-term care facility space for my 'rents if they so need it, and there wont be any hospital beds for grabs so my ailing and elderly parents will be living with my as i care for them.

My 'rents will be screwed out of their pension, or i will be paying insane taxes to cover it. Overall, the health care of my 'rents will be of low quality. On top of everything, there will be cutbacks to a myriad of services and/or massive debt incurred to try to pay for this mess.

Who do i blame? My parents' generation for not preparing properly for this long-predicted crisis.

You better believe it!!!!

That post war baby boom generation is the millstone around all of our necks...

[Ken_Danagger]

I have to agree with the above statement.

The baby boomers allowed a creeping socialism into our policies as a result of the Depression and WW2.

It seems based on the concept of continual growth in all areas. They didn't factor in the possibility that people would live longer and birth rates would drop. Actually, they did, but didn't care as they were truely the short sighted ones and focused only on getting votes.

[Smallc]

You're leaving out one important thing. Medical costs are rising, with or without government. Medical costs are in fact rising faster for insurance companies. Whether or not we pay for medical care through insurance, government insurance, or out of our own pocket, it doesn't matter. As long as medical costs are rising faster than economic growth, we have a problem.

Oh, and there was something you said earlier that didn't make sense. You cannot have two tier healthcare and at the same time eliminate the provincial insurance agency.

[Bonam]

You're leaving out one important thing. Medical costs are rising, with or without government. Medical costs are in fact rising faster for insurance companies. Whether or not we pay for medical care through insurance, government insurance, or out of our own pocket, it doesn't matter. As long as medical costs are rising faster than economic growth, we have a problem.

And therein of course lies the solution. All we need to do is allow economic growth to outpace the increases in medical costs. Being that economic growth is directly correlated with technological progress, and that the pace of technological progress is exponentially accelerating and will continue to do so, I'm not worried. The only way we can put ourselves in real trouble is to implement policies so socialist as to stifle investment in R&D and thus critically slowing technological (and therefore economic) advancement.

[Smallc]

And therein of course lies the solution. All we need to do is allow economic growth to outpace the increases in medical costs. Being that economic growth is directly correlated with technological progress, and that the pace of technological progress is exponentially accelerating and will continue to do so, I'm not worried.

I am. Ecomonic growth stays between 2 and 4% in the western world...as it should. That keeps inflation managebale while at the same time, it outpaces population growth. Medical costs have been growing at 6% a year in Europe and Canada...and even faster in the US. Canada cannot (nor should it try to) sustain that kind of growth long term and there is no sign of medical cost growth slowing...in fact, the opposite is happening.

[Ken_Danagger]

Oh, and there was something you said earlier that didn't make sense. You cannot have two tier healthcare and at the same time eliminate the provincial insurance agency.

I guess you have a point there...

But getting rid of OHIP doesn't preclude another provincially backed, voluntary scheme from popping up where the gov't runs some hospitals/clinics and Ontarians who want to pay into it, do so...while the private sector is allowed to service people who want to pay out of pocket.

Publicly funded health care is a sinking ship. It's going to cover less and less as time goes on. We're going to pay more and more out of pocket while our taxes are going to be going up and up.

In the long run (probably not in my life time) people are going to have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to be able to afford health care and the province isn't going to be able to pay for everyone either.

It's not a pretty picture but that will eventually be the reality...like it or not.

[Smallc]

I guess you have a point there...

But getting rid of OHIP doesn't preclude another provincially backed, voluntary scheme from popping up where the gov't runs some hospitals/clinics and Ontarians who want to pay into it, do so...while the private sector is allowed to service people who want to pay out of pocket.

That doesn't work, because A ) people won't pay into anything in large enough numbers if they aren't compelled to, and B ) the government isn't in the business of delivering healthcare. Getting them involved would just create a bigger bureaucracy.

Publicly funded health care is a sinking ship. It's going to cover less and less as time goes on. We're going to pay more and more out of pocket while our taxes are going to be going up and up.

It is no more a sinking ship than private insurance, which has costs that are increasing even faster.

In the long run (probably not in my life time) people are going to have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to be able to afford health care and the province isn't going to be able to pay for everyone either.

It's not a pretty picture but that will eventually be the reality...like it or not.

I don't see that reality coming to pass. Healthcare is one of the few taxes that most people are willing to pay higher taxes for.