Abstract

Across western societies, health care reform efforts to contain the growing cost of health care and better accommodate the multidimensional conception of health has precipitated wide-spread skepticism over the sustainability of a publically funded health care system. This popular yet unfounded skepticism has resulted in the scape-goating of given populations that are conventionally believed to overuse health care services, namely, the elderly population. In addressing the health care debate from a Canadian perspective, I identify the health needs of elderly people and demonstrate the extent to which they are being accommodated both in actuality and in the reform rhetoric. Drawing from volunteer experience at a senior's organization, interviews with health professionals, Statistics Canada surveys and secondary literature, my principle findings are two-fold: Firstly, the predominate ideological focus of reform is Neoliberalism which posits government intervention as a deterrent to the self-regulatory nature of the economy and has reinforced the medical model approach to health care by emphasizing institutionalized and compartmentalized reform efforts to contain expenditure. Secondly, Neoliberalism and the medical model are underpinned by the reified status of technical expertise in western culture which belies the multidimensional conception of health that, necessarily, extends beyond the physical confines of the body to encompass psycho-social experience and environmental impact. In particular, the question of etiology of elderly illness and depression is confounded by symptoms that intersect the boundaries between physical, mental and social health. I conclude that the variable nature of elderly health and well-being best demonstrates the multidimensional conception of health which, in turn, necessitates a publicly-funded health care system with particular emphasis on public health iniatives.