Increases in the cost of public healthcare outpace income growth

Because Canadians do not incur direct expenses for their use of the healthcare system and because the tax system is such that Canadians cannot readily determine the value of their contribution to public healthcare insurance, many often misunderstand the true costs, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute, entitled The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2024. 

“In 2024, preliminary estimates suggest the average payment for public health care insurance ranges from $4,908 to $17,713 for six common Canadian family types, depending on the type of family,” they state. They add that between 1997 and 2024 the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 2.2 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.7 times as fast as the average income and 1.6 times as fast as the cost of shelter. 

In other terms, between 1997 and 2024, the average Canadian family’s cash income increased by 141.7 per cent. During the same period, shelter costs increased by 150.5 per cent. Comparatively, health care insurance costs for the average Canadian family grew 239.6 per cent.  

Taxpayer-funded cost 

Many, however, grossly underestimate the true cost of healthcare, they add. “When people speak of free health care in Canada, they are entirely ignoring the substantial taxpayer-funded cost of the system,” they write. “The available numbers can be difficult to digest. For example, health spending figures are often presented in aggregate, resulting in numbers so large they are almost meaningless.” 

For example, they say $225.1-billion in tax dollars were spent on publicly-funded healthcare in 2023. This works out to approximately $5,614 per Canadian.  

Although the cost of health care insurance for the average family has increased at a slower pace in the last 10 years, growing at an average of three per cent per year, when compared to the period between 1997 and 2014 when health care costs increased 5.7 per cent each year, on average, the report still notes that the estimated cost of public health insurance for all family types included in the study is higher in 2024 than in pre-pandemic years.