Health & welfare expenditure

Across Australia, use of non-hospital Medicare-subsidised services, such as GP, allied health, specialist and diagnostic imaging, varies considerably depending on where a patient lives. This variation may reflect differences in patients’ health and health care preferences, population growth and accessibility of services (availability, costs and service options).

Australia’s welfare 2019: in brief tells the story of welfare in Australia with key findings on housing, education and skills, employment and work, income and finance: government payments, social support, justice and safety, and Indigenous Australians.

Australia’s welfare 2019 is the 14th biennial welfare report of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. This edition introduces a new format and expanded product suite:

• Australia’s welfare 2019: data insights
• Australia’s welfare snapshots
• Australia’s welfare 2019: in brief
• Australia’s welfare indicators

This report compares key measures of Australia’s health expenditure with that of other OECD countries during the period 2000–2016. Among 36 OECD countries, Australia ranked 12^th highest in both population and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016. In total health expenditure, Australia ranked 11^th.

Health expenditure Australia 2016–17 is available as either data visualisations or a PDF report.

Australia spent $180.7 billion on health in 2016–17—more than $7,400 per person. Real growth in spending of 4.7% in 2016–17 was 1.6 percentage points higher than the average over the past five years (3.1%). Non-government sources recorded the lowest growth rate in health spending in the decade to 2016–17—0.2% compared with the decade average of 4.8%.

This report was first published on the MyHealthyCommunities website.

New data in this web update provides local-level information for 15 measures of health care use across Australia for 2016−17. Results are presented for the 31 Primary Health Network (PHN) areas and smaller local areas called Statistical Areas Level 3 (SA3).

This report was first published on the MyHealthyCommunities website.

In 2012–13, hospital admitted patient expenditure was estimated at $45.0 billion, and accounted for almost one third (31%) of total health expenditure. Expenditure for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was estimated at $2.1 billion. Expenditure was highest in older age groups, but grew for all age groups from 2004–05 to 2012–13 (45.5%). Cardiovascular diseases were the largest disease contributor at $5.0 billion (11.1%), followed by injuries at $4.1 billion (9.0%).

Total spending on health in Australia was $170.4 billion in 2015–16, $6.0 billion (3.6%) higher in real terms than in 2014–15. This was the fourth consecutive year that growth was below the 10 year average of 4.7%.

Despite the low growth, the share of the economy (GDP) represented by health (10.3%) continued to grow, due to slower real GDP growth (2.7%).

Spending on health in Australia (recurrent and capital expenditure combined) was $161.6 billion in 2014–15, $4.4 billion (2.8%) higher in real terms than in 2013–14. This was the third consecutive year that growth in health expenditure was below the 10-year average (4.6% between 2004–05 and 2014–15). Growth in health expenditure per person was also relatively low, at less than a half of the average annual growth over the decade (1.4% compared with 2.9%). Despite the low growth, the share of the economy (GDP) represented by health reached 10.0% for the first time.

Health expenditure grew from $50.3 billion in 1989–90 to $154.6 billion in 2013–14 in real terms (adjusted for inflation). Over the period, health expenditure grew much faster than inflation, the population and population ageing. Health expenditure increased from 6.5% of gross domestic product in 1989–90 to 9.7% of gross domestic product in 2013–14.

This report extends the analysis presented in Health expenditure Australia 2013–14 to further explore expenditure on particular categories of health goods and services. In 2013–14, $58.8 billion was spent on hospitals in Australia, $54.7 billion on primary health care and $32.0 billion on other health goods and services. A further $9.1 billion was spent on capital expenditure. Unreferred medical services attracted the highest share of primary health care funding in 2013–14, at 19.3%. This is different to earlier in the decade, when benefit-paid pharmaceuticals attracted the most spending from 2008–09 to 2011–12. Growth in expenditure on benefit-paid pharmaceuticals slowed in the last 3 years compared with the rest of the decade. This slower growth in expenditure was in contrast to a steady increase in the number of prescriptions dispensed over the same period.

Total expenditure on health was estimated at $154.6 billion in 2013–14, up by 3.1% on 2012–13 in real terms. Growth in expenditure per person was $6,639, which was $94 more in real terms than in 2012–13. Despite this relatively slow growth, total expenditure was 9.8% of GDP in 2013–14, up from 9.7% in 2012–13. Governments provided $104.8 billion (or 67.8%) of total health expenditure, which represented about 25% of taxation revenue (unchanged from 2012–13). The non-government sector share of total expenditure increased from 30.0% in 2011–12 to 32.2% in 2013–14, despite generally falling throughout the decade. Funding by individuals was the fastest growing area of non-government sector expenditure over the decade.

This report provides a picture of ‘frequent GP attenders’ across local areas. It breaks down the Australian population into groups according to how often they visited a GP in 2012–13, and how many different GPs and specialists they saw.

This report was first published on the MyHealthyCommunities website.

This report extends the analysis presented in Health expenditure Australia 2012–13 to further explore expenditure on particular categories of health goods and services. In 2012–13, $55.9 billion was spent on hospitals in Australia, $52.9 billion on primary health care and $29.9 billion on other areas of health spending. A further $8.6 billion was spent on capital expenditure. All funders increased their expenditure on hospitals between 2002–03 and 2012–13; however, growth in state and territory government funding ($10.6 billion) was almost double that of the Australian Government ($5.4 billion). Primary health care spending is shared relatively evenly between Australian Government (about 43.0%) and non-government sources (about 41.0%), with the states and territories playing a relatively small role, over the same period.

Expenditure on health in Australia was estimated to be $147.4 billion in 2012–13, 1.5% higher than in 2011–12 and the lowest growth since the mid 1980’s. In 2012–13, governments provided $100.8 billion (or 68.3%) of total health expenditure. Government funding of health expenditure fell in real terms for the first time in the decade by 0.9%, largely a result of a decline in Australian Government funding of 2.4%. State and territory government funding was also relatively low, growing just 1.4% in real terms in 2012–13. In contrast, growth in non-government funding was relatively strong at 7.2%. 

This issues paper reviews the context and past experience of public finance reform and its effects on governance in remote Indigenous communities. It focuses on the modalities used to manage the conversion of public financing of Indigenous organisations into activities. Funding modalities means the policies and instruments that structure and govern how funding is delivered and aligned with government priorities, including administrative, financing and accountability mechanisms.

Arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions are substantial contributors to health-care expenditure in Australia. In 2008–09, estimated health-care expenditure allocated to these conditions totalled $5,690 million– the 4th most expensive disease group, accounting for 8.7% of total health-care expenditure allocated to disease groups. This report is the latest in a series on arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions expenditure. The key objectives of this report are to describe the distribution of health-care expenditure by health-care sector for the major musculoskeletal conditions: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, back problems and osteoporosis.

This report extends the analysis presented in Health expenditure Australia 2011–12 to further explore expenditure on particular categories of health goods and services, including hospitals, primary health care, other recurrent health expenditure and capital expenditure. In 2011–12, a total of $132.4 billion was spent on recurrent health expenditure where 40.4% ($53.5 billion) was spent on hospitals, 38.2% ($50.6 billion) was spent on primary health care and the remaining 21.3% ($28.3 billion) was spent on other areas of health spending. Capital expenditure accounted for a further $7.9 billion bringing the total expenditure on health goods and services in 2011–12 to $140.2 billion.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) makes a considerable impact on the health of Australians and has the highest level of health-care expenditure of any disease group. Between 2000–01 and 2008–09, health-care expenditure allocated to CVD increased by 48% from $5,207 million to $7,717 million. The health-care sector with the largest increase (55%) was hospital admitted patients.