The predictable consequence to the gaps in our health funding? Private spending keeps growing faster than public - Toronto Star

The “unsustainable spending” narrative obscures where the growth pressure really sits — and who has to bear it.

A paramedic attends to a patient in a hallway at Humber River Hospital, in Toronto, during the COVID-19 pandemic, in January 2022.

Dr. Danyaal Raza is an associate professor at the University of Toronto and a family doctor at St. Michael's Hospital.

Every budget cycle, we hear the same warning: public health-care spending is unsustainable, and governments can’t afford to invest more. It’s a convenient narrative for politicians looking to freeze or even cut public expenditure.

It’s also not supported by data. In fact, it gets the diagnosis backward.

CMAJ study of ER doctors cites burnout and a feeling that the health-care system is broken.