National health expenditure trends, 2022 — the 26th edition of the annual publication on health expenditure trends from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) — provides detailed information on health spending in Canada using the National Health Expenditure Database (NHEX).
This year’s release presents finalized 2020 actual health expenditures and preliminary estimates for 2021 and 2022. The 2020, 2021 and 2022 data includes government-budgeted funding for health-related activities as an emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. National health expenditure trends forecasts are based on main estimates and budgets for the public sector.
Key findings:
- Total health spending in Canada is expected to reach $331 billion in 2022, or $8,563 per Canadian. It is anticipated that health expenditure will represent 12.2% of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2022, following a high of 13.8% in 2020.
- Total health expenditure in Canada is expected to rise by 0.8% in 2022, following high growth of 13.2% in 2020 and 7.6% in 2021. Prior to the pandemic, from 2015 to 2019, growth in health spending averaged 4% per year.
- Hospitals (24.34%), Physicians (13.60%) and Drugs (13.58%) continue to account for the largest shares of health dollars (more than half of total health spending) in 2022.
- Spending related to the COVID-19 pandemic has continued in 2022. COVID-19 Response Funding makes up 4.4% of total health spending, compared with 9.9% in 2021. Federal, provincial and territorial governments (combined) spent $770 per person in 2020 for health-specific funding to deal with COVID-19. Pandemic response funding is projected to decline to $376 per person in 2022.
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