The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare major gaps in Canada’s long-term care (LTC) system and raised questions about our heavy reliance on institutional care.

In this study, University of Ottawa professor Colleen M. Flood and her co-authors show that cash-for-care benefits could give Canadians more autonomy in choosing the care they receive, while reducing unwanted admissions to LTC institutions. Such benefits are widely used in other OECD countries to ensure that LTC services are more readily provided where most people want to receive them - at home.