Skip to main content

Health care funding falls, again

Real provincial government health care funding per-person has fallen again this year in Ontario, the third year in a row.  Since 2009 real funding per-person has fallen 2.6% -- $63 per person. 

provincial health care expenditures in Ontario and Canada

Across Canada real per person funding is in its fourth consecutive year of increase. Since 2009, real provincial funding across Canada is up $89 -- 3.6%.

In fact the funding gap between Ontario and Canada as a whole has gown consistently for years (as set out below in current dollars).


Ontario funds health care less than any other province -- indeed, the province that funds health care the second least (B.C.) provides $185 more per person per year, 4.7% more.  
2017 provincial health care per capita expenditures

Provincial health care spending in the rest of Canada (excluding Ontario) is now  $574 higher per person annually than in Ontario. 

Ontario versus the rest of Canada -- health care funding

 Ontario has not always provided lower than average health care funding increases-- but that has been the general pattern since 2005.
Private expenditures on health care have exceeded Ontario government increases for the last three years. Since 2011, private expenditures on health have increased 3.9% annually, while provincial expenditures increased 2.3% annually. 

private and provincial health care expenditures in Ontario

Starting in 2010, provincial government health care funding increases in Ontario began to fall, hitting just 1% in 2012.  Hospital funding increases continued downward in 2013 hitting just above 0% in 2013, recovering somewhat in 2014 and 2015.  Funding increases for doctors were quite a bit higher, despite the alleged attack on their incomes.  

Below is a chart with the provincial government per person dollar funding since 2008 in real dollars (using constant 1997 dollars). In 2017, real funding per person was still less than in 2008  -- although the Ontario economy is about 17% larger than it was in 2008. 

The hysteria from the right about runaway health care cost is just that -- hysteria.

 

Two-thirds of this dollar cut came from cuts to hospital funding.  Since 2010/11 real provincial hospital expenditures have been cut 8.3%.  
Declining real hospital expenditures 1991 through 2017
That is $81 per person per year in constant 1997 dollars, or $128 per person in today's money.

 In fact real provincial expenditures on hospitals are lower than they were in 1991 -- despite an increase in the median age in Ontario from 33.3 years to 40.6 years and a doubling of the population over 65 (and even bigger increases in the population over 85). 

 In 1991, Ontario spent more per-person on hospitals than Canadian provinces and territories as a whole, but now Ontario falls far behind. 
rComparison of hospital expenditres: Ontario and Canada 1991-2017
The provincial government has promised a 4.5%  health care funding increase for 2018/19.  That should result in at least a one-year real per-person funding increase for 2018.  But it is not enough to reverse the decline of recent years. Worse, the government also quietly notes that it will revert to a lower increase in 2019/20 -- once the provincial election is over.

The data for the charts above comes from the Canadian Institute for Health Information National Health Expenditure Trends 1975-2017 data tables with the relevant tables copied below:
  • https://www.scribd.com/document/365092234/Chart-Cihi-Provincial-Gov-Health-Funding-2017-11 , 
  • https://www.scribd.com/document/365093199/Chart-Cihi-Increases-Health-Expenditures-Private-Provincial-2017 , 
  • https://www.scribd.com/document/365093456/chart-cihi-provincial-expenditure-by-sector-2017-xlsx ,   
  • https://www.scribd.com/document/365093704/Chart-Cihi-Per-Capita-Provincial-Expenditure-2017 
  • https://www.scribd.com/document/365397742/chart-provincial-hospital-expemditure-percapita-real1997-1975-2017
See https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-health-expenditure-trends#data-tables for all CIHI National Health Expenditure Trends 1975-2017 published data. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More spending on new hospitals and new beds? Nope

Hospital funding:  There is something off about the provincial government's Budget claims on hospital capital funding (funding to build and renovate hospital beds and facilities).    For what it is worth (which is not that much, given the long time frame the government cites), the province claims it will increase hospital capital spending over the next 10 years from $11 billion to $20 billion – or on average to about $2 billion per year.   But, this is just a notional increase from the previous announcement of future hospital capital spending.  Moreover, even if we did take this as a serious promise and not just a wisp of smoke, the government's own reports shows they have actually funded hospital infrastructure about $3 billion a year over the 2011/12-2015/16 period. So this “increase” is really a decrease from past actual spending. Even last year's (2016-17) hospital capital funding increase was reported in this Budget at $2.3 billion - i.e. about ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data.   This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization.   Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion.  That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year.   The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million.     In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more