Health costs skyrocket.(Canada)(Brief article)

Toronto -- Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan recently acknowledged concern over the escalating costs of health care. It now eats up 46% of the provincial 2008-2009 budget, up from 33% ten years earlier ($37.5 billion out of $93.3 billion) It is expected to rise to 50% of the budget in the near future.

Costs have risen in line with the aging population and the increasing demand for new technologies. Meantime, more than a few Ontario patients have been sent for emergency neurosurgery and cardiac care to the United States because of limited facilities at home. (Toronto Star, March 30; Globe, March 21, 2008).

A question not asked by the media is how many …