By LUMA MUHTADIE
Globe and Mail Update
Canada will spend more than $120-billion on health by year's end, accounting for 10 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product, the Canadian Institute for Health Information revealed today.
Canada's projected 2003 health spending as a proportion of its GDP matches a record reached in 2002 and ranks Canada fourth among a list of 12 comparable countries.
The private sector accounted for 30 per cent of this spending, an all-time high.
Adjusted for inflation, Canada's 2003 health spending will have increased by 4.6 per cent over last year. This is reflected in a significant increase in capital spending, resulting from major investments in high-tech diagnostic equipment, such as MRIs and CT scanners, along with the construction of new buildings.
Canada will spend $36.4-billion on hospitals � the largest component of health spending, accounting for 30 per cent of total spending. Still, hospital spending has declined steadily in the past 27 years, from 45 per cent of total spending.
Drugs, on the other hand, are one of the fastest-growing components of spending, nearly doubling to 16 per cent. Physician services will cost an estimated $15.6-billion, comprising 12.9 per cent of this year's total spending.
Canada will spend an average of $3,839 per person, an inflation-adjusted increase of 3.7 per cent.
But per capita spending is concentrated at the two ends of the age spectrum, with more than $6,000 per person spent on infants, and $17,000 per person spent on people 85 and over.
Among the provinces, per capita expenditures appear highest in Manitoba at $4,220, followed by Alberta at $4,010 and Ontario at $3,945.
But health spending per person is higher in the territories than it is in the provinces, as a result of the inefficiencies of providing health care to a small populations in large geographic areas.
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