UPFRONT | Roundup PUbLIC HEaLTH Take 5 2014 health spending smallest in 17 years: report changed significantly over the past decade,” Brent Diverty, CIHI’s vice-presi-dent for programs, said in a press release. In 2012, per person spending for seniors ranged broadly, from $6,368 for those aged 65 to 69 to $21,054 per year for those 80 or older. The low end of that scale isn’t far off what the report said Canada will pay per person in general in 2014 – $6,045. Canada is expected to spend just under $215 bil-lion this year on health care, which equates to 11 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. The public purse picks up about 70 per cent of health-care costs in Can-ada. The remaining 30 per cent comes from out-of-pocket payments by indi-viduals and private health insurance. That 70-30 cost breakdown has been rela-tively constant for the past 20 years, said the report. Hospitals make up about 30 per cent of health-care spending – $63.5 bil-lion. Drugs and doctors come next, at 16 and 15 per cent respectively, or $33.9 billion and $33.3 billion. Drug costs, once a ma-jor driver of expenditure increases, have stabilized, growing by only 0.8 per cent in 2014. -Helen Branswell, The Canadian Press The cost of health care in Canada will go up this year, but the increase is expected to be the smallest in 17 years, a new report suggested. The report on health-care spending in Canada estimates that total health expenditures will rise by only 2.1 per cent, or $61 more per person compared to last year’s health costs. Spending on drugs has flattened out, and concerns about the health cost of an aging population aren’t currently driving costs up in a significant way, said the report from the Canadian Institute for Health Infor-mation. At this point, population aging is only increasing costs by just under one per cent per year. The trend is expected to change incre-mentally over the next two decades. “While concerns regard-ing demographics are un-derstandable – Canadians over the age of 65 account for less than 15 per cent of the population but con-sume more than 45 per cent of provinces’ and territo-ries’ health-care dollars – the share of public-sector health dollars spent on Canadian seniors has not NUmbER CRUNCHINg The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates between 1.6 to 3.8 million concussions occur every year. Concussion management is now a hot topic among sports enthusiasts and health practitioners. Head count 5 to 10 7 to 10 number of recovery days for most concussions The year the first International Consensus Conference on Concussion in Sport was established percentage of athletes who will experience a concussion in any given sport season For more stories on Policy visit canadianchiropractor.ca. percentage of concussions that generally develop into persistent post-concussive symptoms 8 Canadian Chiropractor December 2014 www.canadianchiropractor.ca Illustration: Brian Fray 2001 10 to 15
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