Health-care costs doubled in last decade

[steven lloyd]

Health-care costs doubled in last decade
Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Health-care costs in Canada doubled over the past decade and will cross the $200 billion mark this year, a report released Thursday reveals.

The report shows, though, that the growth in health-care spending has actually started to slow, after rising at an average rate of seven per cent a year during the period from 1998 to 2008.

Health-care spending will increase by four per cent this year, the lowest percentage increase in the past 15 years, said the report, from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

A key driver of the rising costs is what the system spends on doctors, which rose by an average of 6.8 per cent a year from 1998 to 2008. Of that, 3.6 per cent was attributable to increases in the fees paid to physicians. The rest related to increased usage of health care, in part due to population growth and aging.

With medical schools geared up to churn out substantially more physicians in coming years, the system could be heading for a perfect storm, a health consultant who studied the report predicted.

Read more: http://healthandfitness.sympatico.ca/ne ... e/93cb91cd

[D suzuki]

thanks for posting that, all levels of goverment in canada, knew, these days were coming, and did not plan for it

[Merry]

I know of a GP in a small central interior town who made $475,000 last year. And there are specialists in that same town who are making double that figure.

I don't mind paying physicians good wages, but some of their current salaries are a little "over the top" in my opinion. How much is enough do you think, because I'll tell you now that even at these nose bleed salaries, most physicians consider themselves underpaid.

I know they work long hours, odd shifts, etc. etc. but so do firemen and police men, and they don't make anywhere near this kind of money. Physician salaries are definitely one of the reasons health care is so expensive today.

[grammafreddy]

Another thing that drives up health care costs is that to get a simple refill on a regular prescription, you have to book an appointment with a doctor - even though it is one you have taken for years and years, needs no adjusting and doesn't need watching.

[NAB]

Some interesting comparisons... Greece has a population of approximately 11 million, 2 million less than Ontario and a little more than twice that of BC in a country with a land mass that could fit roughly 8 times over a map of Ontario, and approximately 7 times over a map of BC.

Greece's per capita GDP is currently shown as only US$27,000.00, while BC's is roughly C$41,000,00 and Ontario's is roughly C$44,000.00. It's political system is as a Republic. But my main interest in looking at where Greece stands relative to others had to do with health care...

In trying to come to grips with our health care situation, while at the same time trying to come to grips with the unfolding situation in Greece, I came across this little snippet... and started to wonder if what we really need is not so much private delivery inroads into the health care sector - but simply to reduce in a major way the amount of dollars we increasingly pump into the existing universal system.. lest continuing on our currenty path contribute to us ending up in a similar situation...

The Greek healthcare system is universal and is ranked as one of the best in the world. In a 2000 World Health Organization report it was ranked 14th in the overall assessment and 11th at quality of service, surpassing countries such as the United Kingdom (18th) and Germany (25th).[105] In 2010, there were 138 hospitals with 31,000 beds in the country, but on 1 July 2011, the Ministry for Health and Social Solidarity announced its plans to shorten the number to 77 hospitals with 36,035 beds, as a necessary reform to reduce expenses and further enhance healthcare standards.[106] Greece's healthcare expenditures as a percentage of GDP were 9.6% in 2007 according to a 2011 OECD report, just above the OECD average of 9.5%.[107] The country has the largest number of doctors-to-population ratio of any OECD country.[107]

Life expectancy in Greece is 80.3 years, above the OECD average of 79.5.[107] and among the highest in the world. The same OECD report showed that Greece had the largest percentage of adult daily smokers of any of the 34 OECD members.[107] The country's obesity rate is 18.1%, which is above the OECD average of 15.1% but considerably below the American rate of 27.7%.[107] In 2008, Greece had the highest rate of perceived good health in the OECD, at 98.5%.[108] Infant mortality is one of the lowest in the developed world with a rate of 3.1 deaths per 1,000 live births.[

[coffeeFreak]

The way I see it is our system is set up arse-backwards --- intervention rather than prevention.

Here are a couple examples: if my mother (who is on a very fixed income, and don't even get me started on why that occurred) was to receive physio for her lungs a minimum of three times per week, but preferably daily, there would be a high probability that she would not end up in the hospital for 2wks x 2-3 times per year, in private room (she is MRSA positive).

The system Interior health has now allows for 6wks of physio once or twice per week after hospitalization and is dependant on if the one therapist is available in the community to provide those services. Physio is administered in the home, but it would make more sense if they had an office where those who are capable could go to them (seems another more cost effective action).

Now let's take this further, the only reason she ends up in the hospital is because she needs extremely harsh antibiotics that require being administrated every 8hrs, and she needs to be tested for toxicity levels. Interior Health home support nurses could do this, but they only work, I believe 8am-8pm. So because she would require a midnight dose, it is not possible for them to provide the service which would allow her to stay at home...2wks of extreme care in a private room (making her more vulnerable to other infections) would not be necessary if they were able to have a nurse administer her meds at midnight.

This is only one person of many, many in our communities. We have bought into the idea of "blame the victim", that we are abusing the system and that we should take better care of ourselves, exercise, eat right, yadayada. Sure these are fair demands, but the reality is, the way our health care system operates contributes more to its present financial crisis than any other factor. But, allowing it to run itself into the ground only adds fodder to those political groups who want to privatize our medicare system.