Australasia -Health spending grows 10 percent to $87 billion

Citation

(2007), "Australasia -Health spending grows 10 percent to $87 billion", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 20 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2007.06220aab.005

Australasia -Health spending grows 10 percent to $87 billion

Far East and Australasia

Australia

Health spending grows 10 percent to $87 billion

Keywords: Healthcare expenditure, Private healthcare spending

Health expenditure in Australia was $87.3 billion in 2004-2005, according to a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Head of the Institute’s Expenditure and Economics Unit, Mr John Goss, said that total growth since 2003-2004 was about 10 percent, or 6 percent adjusted for inflation and that average health services expenditure was up $361 per person to $4,319.

The report, Health Expenditure Australia 2004-05, shows that as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP), expenditure on health increased to 9.8 percent, up from 9.4 percent in 2003-04 and 8.1 percent in 1994-1995.

Australia’s health expenditure to GDP ratio is comparable to Canada, Austria and Norway. It is more than the UK and New Zealand, and considerably lower than the USA which in 2004 was 15.3 percent of GDP.

The areas of health expenditure that showed relatively high increase were public health (14 percent), medical services (13 percent), ambulance services (12 percent), community health (11 percent), research (10 percent) and high-level residential care (10 percent).

These six areas accounted for close to 40 percent of the health spending increase between 2003-2004 and 2004-2005.

The report showed the majority of health spending was funded by governments (68 percent) with the Australian Government contributing 46 percent. State, territory and local governments contributed 23 percent, and the non-government sector funded 32 percent.

The relative share of funding for public hospitals has been changing over the past decade. Between 1994-95 and 2004-05, the Australian Government share of public hospital funding decreased from 47.6 percent to 44.2 percent, while the state and territory government share of public hospital funding increased from 43.3 percent to 48.0 percent.

Hospitals represented the largest area of health expenditure in 2004-2005 (33 percent of the total). Public hospitals accounted for $22.1 billion and private hospitals $6.9 billion. The private hospital share of hospital expenditure increased in the last decade from 21 percent of hospital expenditure in 1994-95 to 24 percent in 2004-2005.

Private health insurance funding of $5.7 billion was mainly spent on private hospital services (48 percent), dental services (12 percent), administration (10 percent) and medical services (10 percent).

For more information: www.aihw.gov.au