Health care cost drivers : Facteurs d'accroissement des dépenses de santé : les faits

During the past year, in the face of continuing health expenditure increases and in response to the demand by decision-makers for more evidence on cost trends, CIHI analyzed data for the period 1998 to 2008 to estimate how much of the 2 Health Care Cost Drivers: The Facts. [...] This report focuses principally on public-sector health expenditures, as it is these health services and goods that are also the focus of health system decision-makers, particularly in the lead-up to the renegotiation of the 2004 federal/provincial/territorial health accord. [...] The most obvious similarity is the positive correlation between the growth in the economy and the growth in public-sector health spending between 1998 and 2008. [...] With a 70:30 ratio between the public and private shares of total health spending, Canada is at the low end of public spending relative to private spending among OECD countries.6 What is generally not realized by Canadians is that the United States actually surpassed Canada in terms of both government health care spending per person and the share of the economy devoted to public-sector health care [...] The most notable areas of inflation have been the cost of physician services and the differential between wages in the health and social assistance sector, as defined and measured by Statistics Canada, versus the general economy.