The fiscal sustainability of Canadian publicly funded healthcare systems and the policy response to the fiscal gap : Viabilité financière des systèmes publics de santé du Canada et politiques stratégiques quant au déséquilibre budgétaire

The fiscal sustainability of the publicly funded healthcare systems in Canada is a persistent policy issue. Recent estimates by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) put total nominal healthcare spending in Canada in 2010 at $191.6 billion, reflecting an annual nominal growth rate of 5.2% in 2010. Since 1975, real per capita government health spending in Canada has risen at an average annual rate of 2.3%, in excess of the growth in real per capita GDP, government revenues, federal transfers and total government expenditures. With these persistent increases in health expenditures in mind, this study examines the fiscal sustainability of Canada's publicly funded healthcare systems for the period up to 2035.