Both federal and provincial ministers of health talk as though wild increases in health spending are inevitable as the population ages, but it's not clear from other countries' experiences that it should be so. In Britain, for example, research suggests that the age of a population is only marginally responsible for rising costs. Rather than battle over who gets to score political points with taxpayers' money, politicians on both levels need to be honest with the public about what can be achieved with the resources available. There needs to be open and depoliticized debate about how much as a society Canada is prepared to spend on health care, whether through taxation, other forms of funding or direct individual spending. That sum adds up to only 1.5 per cent of the total health-care budget in Quebec.
Taxpayers have the right to ask a lot of questions of both levels of government.