Make this an election issue in 2015.... or lose it

Fact sheet: Public health care costs less, delivers more

Public health care is sustainable – in fact, it’s a far better deal than private for-profit health care. It also gives Canadians better quality and more accountability.

Public health care spending remains 8 per cent of our national income (gross domestic product),¹ and it is slowing – up only 3.3 per cent in 2011 and 2.9 per cent in 2012, compared to 7 per cent annual increases over the previous decade.² Spending on Medicare (hospital and physician services) has been even more stable at 4 to 5 per cent of GDP over the last 35 years.³

Most peer countries spend more on health care through the public sector; 10 OECD countries spend more than 80 per cent publicly compared to our 70 per cent. Canada is among the bottom third.⁴

Major cost drivers are on the private side: drugs, physicians, medical products, public-private partnerships, and for-profit providers of diagnostics, surgeries, dental care, physiotherapy, continuing care, eye care and other services.

• Private sector health spending as a share of total health spending increased from 25 to 30 per cent between 1989 and 2010.⁵
• Prescription drugs have increased as a share of Medicare spending from 1.7 per cent to 8.5 per cent since 1975.⁶
• Physician payment has risen faster than inflation and is now the fastest growing category of health spending,⁷ largely due to fee increases.⁸
• Between 1988 and 2009, per capita spending on private health insurance increased from $139.40 to $664.10.⁹
• Ontario paid 75 per cent more to for-profit labs than it had to non-profit community labs over the previous 30 years, for the same tests.¹⁰
• Public-private partnerships are 83 per cent costlier to finance than public projects.¹¹

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