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Health spending in Saskatchewan

15 Mar 2006

Daniel Hickey SIPP Government of Saskatchewan Senior Fellow 2005-06 The Scholar Series Each year the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy has benefited enormously from the appointment of two Senior Fellows, one from the University of Regina and the other from the Government of Saskatchewan. [...] No such threshold is commonly acknowledged, or routinely cited, and jurisdictions may – as has been the pattern and practice over the last thirty years – allocate an ever increasing share of their collective resources to supporting the health sector, thereby rendering the question of the sustainability of the health system to some extent moot, if not confusing to the general public. [...] On the other hand, the discussion of sustainability is beneficial in that it focuses our attention on the phenomena of escalating health costs, and the implicit trade- offs made – and to be made – in the funding of health care rather than other worthwhile social endeavours. [...] Population projections, and the anticipated effects of population changes on future health spending, are the focus of the fourth section, and an examination of health financing options – and their public policy implica- tions – is presented in the final portion of the paper. [...] Gross domestic product is a measure commonly used in examining health expendi- ture developments and the related question of health sustainability – the rationale underlying the analysis is if health spending outpaces the rate of economic growth, and as a result an ever increasing and large share of our collective resources are committed to health care, the economy may not be able to support this
health government politics public financing public finance sustainability economy taxation finance inflation gross domestic product canada consumer price index economic growth employment government policy health expenditures health insurance medical care tax government budget taxes health care costs government budget balance medicare premiums health treatment government health care canada health act health care in canada g.d.p

Authors

Hickey, Daniel

Pages
52
Published in
Canada

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