Health Care: To ease future cuts, the government established a budgeting system this year which would see much of the COVID-related funding budgeted under special funds distinct from the normal ministries. So much of the increased funding for the Ministry of Health or Ministry of Long-Term Care is not reflected in their line items but instead through special funds that are then later allocated to a ministry. So first the good news: The health and LTC special COVID funds are “budgeted” to continue for a couple of years. An additional $4 billion in 2021–22 and $2 billion in 2022–23 is currently planned to help the health sector address COVID-19. The bad news, however, is that even with that continuation of special COVID funds, overall health care and LTC funding is budgeted to go down -- by $1.9 billion in 2021/22 and another $500 million in 2022/23. That's a lot of cutting. Of course that is “down” after a major increase this year. Includin...
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan