Health spending projected below national average

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This article was published 03/11/2022 (1088 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MANITOBA’S annual health-care spending is projected to hit $11.8 billion before the end of this year, new data show, as Canada’s overall health spending climbs to $331 billion.

That’s about $8,400 for each Manitoban, and $8,563 per Canadian, as the province is on track to spend below the national average this year.

The forecast estimates, released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, are based on national expenditures, private costs and public-sector budgets that show a slowdown from record-high pandemic spending.

COVID-19 is no longer driving provincial health budgets. Instead, systemic costs related to hospital use, clearing backlogs and dealing with deferred treatments and an aging population are now the top spending priorities, said Chris Kuchciak, manager of health expenditures at CIHI.

“COVID wasn’t the driving force like it has been in the previous two years. Now, we’re seeing those longer-term structural issues being the driving force,” he said.

Across the country, the spending data reflected a drop in physician billing and certain hospital spending as early pandemic lockdowns stopped many from going to the doctor or accessing their usual treatments, Kuchciak explained. That spending is starting to pick up again, and the expenditures are reflecting the impact of long-delayed health-care services for many Canadians.

“Health-care use has now taken over as the driver. There’s the deferred care — the care that didn’t happen during 2020 and has returned. We have the return of routine care — think of chronic disease management — and then the new care associated with a growing population and an aging population,” Kuchciak said.

The highest proportion of Manitoba’s health spending (about 25 per cent) goes to hospitals. But the spending categories that are forecast to see the highest increases in government spending this year are in administration and public health, while the province’s COVID-19 response spending is projected to fall by 30 per cent.

The 2022 national projections represent flat growth for health-care spending across Canada. In Manitoba, health-care spending is expected to fall below the national average.

The provincial government intends to announce additional funding plans later this year, a government spokesperson suggested in a statement Thursday.

“Our government invested more money in Manitoba’s health-care system than at any other point in history — a total of $11.8 billion.  This includes $7.2 billion that our government provides in pubic system and other non-insured health partners. The numbers laid out in the CIHI report are simply a projection, and a projection that our government looks forward to changing by year end including the announcement of our Health Human Resource Action Plan in the coming weeks.”

For 2022, a 0.8 per cent increase is projected nationally, compared with a seven per cent health spending increase in 2021 and a 13 per cent spike in 2020. In Manitoba, health spending has levelled off almost completely, with only a 0.1 per cent increase projected this year.

Pre-pandemic, Manitoba was spending slightly more than the national average on health care, according to CIHI data. Manitoba had about a nine per cent increase in health spending in 2021 and a five per cent increase in 2020.

Health spending typically goes up by an average four per cent each year across Canada, CIHI found.

Looking to the future, the institute is considering the ongoing demand for health care, along with potential increased costs related to a new wave of COVID-19, all amid looming economic uncertainty.

“We’ve seen, historically, a relationship between health spending growth and economic growth,” Kuchciak said.

“Now we’re in a situation where people are talking about slower economic times ahead, so that can have a dampening effect on future health spending growth, potentially.”

Manitoba NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwara put the province’s situation at the feet of the governing Progressive Conservatives.

“The PC government, first under Brian Pallister and now with Premier Stefanson, has cut health care in Manitoba for years,” Asagwara said Wednesday.

“Leading up to the pandemic, they closed emergency rooms, fired nurses and cut services… When COVID-19 hit, our system was too under-resourced to respond properly, and many Manitobans faced tragic consequences because of it.”

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca