Author: Canadian Medical Association

Publication Date: March 25, 2021

Description: The year 2021 marks an important demographic milestone as it is the first year that Canada's largest cohort, the baby-boomers, begin turning 75. As a larger share of the baby boomers move into the ages associated with higher care needs, this will result in rapid growth in demand for home and long-term care. Yet, the health system is already struggling to meet current needs for home and long-term care. This report highlights these challenges by quantifying the looming costs of providing care to our seniors and explores policy solutions that are aimed at offering improvements while creating system efficiencies. While these policy solutions can better meet care needs and also create system savings, they are simply unable to counter the significant jump in future costs that is forthcoming from our aging demographics. Policymakers and other stakeholders will need to quickly decide how they will handle this rapid rise in care needs.

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Keywords: long-term care; aging; elder care; health system; home care; health policy; ALC; Alternate Level of Care; ALC