THE POLITICS OF CARE AND AGING FOR DISABLED ONTARIANS UNDER AUSTERITY

摘要

As Canada’s population ages and public policies are increasingly structured by financialized debt and austerity, policy makers are scrambling to find innovative and “cost-effective” ways to provide care for older Canadians. Similarly, healthcare entrepreneurs are developing ways of capitalizing on the “aging market.” Innovations include public-private partnership financing for healthcare infrastructure and expanded direct funding home care program for older people. Many disabled Ontarians, however, do not have the resources to access these individualized care options and so are forced to cobble together entrepreneurial and community-based survival strategies. Based on a review of current provincial policy and extensive qualitative focus group data from aging disabled Ontarians, this presentation reviews how austere public policy innovations are shaping the politics of aging and care for older disabled Ontarians. Key care strategies and political responses are analyzed thematically.