Rising public health care costs a concern: medical society
ROBERT WILLIAMS LEGISLATURE BUREAU
By the numbers
Unattached individuals - $4,596 Two parents, zero children - $12,283 Two parents, one child - $12,410 Two parents, two children - $12,057 One parent, one child - $4,693 One parent, two children - $3,994
The New Brunswick Medical Society said Wednesday that New Brunswickers should be “especially” concerned over increasing costs for public health care in Canada.
This comes after a new report from the Fraser Institute found the average Canadian family with two parents and two children will pay $12,057 on public health care this year.
That’s 70 per cent higher than 1997.
Single individuals will pay $4,596 – almost a 100 per cent increase over the past two decades.
The report was released Tuesday with the intent of showing Canadians that“health care in Canada is not free.”
“The rate at which the cost of providing health care has been increasing in recent years should be of concern to all Canadians,” said Dr. Lynn Murphy-Kaulbeck, president of the medical society.“This is especially true in New Brunswick in the context of a rapidly ageing population who will need increased access to health care in the coming years.”
The Public Health Association of New Brunswick and P.E.I. was quick to point out this is not the only health expense for Canadians, there are private costs as well.
That’s why they are calling for an expansion of medicare to include services that are currently privately funded in Canada.
Emily Leaman, a board member of the health association, used the example of a Pharmacare plan for prescription medications to help decrease the out-of-pocket expenditures of individual Canadians.
In 2016, Canada spent over $148 billion on publicly funded health care, according to statistics from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, or CIHI. An additional $68 billion came fromprivatefunding.
Leaman said that approximately 48 per cent of the private funding comes from out-of-pocket expenses, just over $30 billion a year, according to the most up-to-date statistics from CIHI.
She said the association is in favor of more transparency from the provincial and federal government on where the dollars are being spent.
“We believe that Canadians should be aware of where their tax dollars are being spent in any governmental department or program,” she said in email Tuesday. “Transparency aids with public accountability, and there are always ways to improve this through increased reporting and accessibility of data.”
An average family, the Fraser Institute report found, will spend 23.5 per cent of their yearly income directly on public health care through taxes.
Due to that fact, an equal average based on population would not be accurate because everyone has different incomes -- people who earn more will pay greater than people who earn less.
To get these figures, the report looked at average incomes by family type, and based their assessments from those numbers.
Families in the top 10 per cent of income earners in the country will spend $39,123 on average and families in the bottom 10 per cent will spend $471, the report found.
Leaman argues that regardless of income, everyone in Canada should have the right to health care.
“As public health professionals, we believe in the spirit of the Canada Health Act: people should have access to care based on need, not ability to pay.”
She said the health association believes that “upstream” initiatives should be the priority to increase the overall health of the country. These are programs that don’t immediately fall under the health category, but will have an impact down the road.
“We know that determinants of health like housing, early childhood development, and income have a much larger effect on our health than access to healthcare services. Therefore, we advocate for initiatives that help address inequities in these determinants, for example: increased affordable housing units, public daycare programs, and a guaranteed annual income.”
Murphy-Kaulbeck points to more New-Brunswick specific solutions, and calls on the province to start making changes.
“There are solutions that the New Brunswick government can implement to slow the growth in health care costs and still address the health care needs of the population,”she said. “This includes increased resources for health prevention and promotion as well as more emphasis on supporting seniors in their own homes and communities through innovative home care services and programs.”
The Department of Health was not immediately available for comment.