Canada’s health care system unsustainable-IMF
by Harleen Kaur - December 27, 2010
Canada, 27th December: The healthcare system of Canada has been labeled as unsustainable by the International Monetary Fund in a latest report.
Based in Washington, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has stated the government and the provincial governments had been
unfair about the actual health care costs. The IMF warned that such high costs especially in the wake of ageing population are likely
to impact the budgets in the times to come.
Hence, the Canadian provinces must become more answerable to Canadians with regard to the actual healthcare costs and must
work towards ensuring best healthcare practices to be provided in the future.
Its not just the IMF that seems to be worried about the rising healthcare costs, in fact, several Canada think-tanks have been
cautioning Canada about this issue through such reports in the last few years.
The report by the IMF maintains that the IMF directors are encouraging the concerned authorities for increasing communication about
the existing challenges in order to improve the awareness of the general public.
Bringing more transparency and increasing communication about the challenges as well as long-term results will help in contributing
to the discussions regarding available solutions, the IMF report maintains.
Canada needs a new healthcare agreement after the present healthcare agreement between the provincial and the federal government
ends in the year 2014.
The current rate of transfer payments to the Canadian provinces is 6 percent annually and the Canadian government has maintained
that it will not introduce any increase in the present rate. This attitude of Canadian government has invited severe criticism.
Nonetheless, the IMF maintained in its report that the economy of Canada, in the short-term, is performing much better as compared
to the other nations.
But some key risks had been identified by the IMF in its report which include high levels of household debt as the internal risk and the
weaker outlook of the US as the biggest external risk.
It has been clearly warned in the IMF report that any increases introduced in the future rate of interest could spell more strains on the
Canadian households which are already burdened with high debts.
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