VANCOUVER—A typical Canadian family of four will pay an estimated $16,950 for public health-care insurance this year, finds a new study released by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank.
“Canadians pay a substantial amount of money for health care through a variety of taxes—even if we don’t pay directly for medical services,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2023.
Health care in Canada is not “free.” While Canadians may not be billed directly when they use medical services, they pay a substantial amount of money for health care through the country’s tax system. Unfortunately, the size of these tax payments is hard to determine because there is no “dedicated” health insurance tax. As a result, individuals and families often cannot fully appreciate the true cost they pay towards the public health care system.
“Canadians cannot easily work out precisely what they pay to government each year for health care because there are many different sources of government revenues that may contribute to funding health care, including income taxes, Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Pension Plan (CPP) premiums, property taxes, profit taxes, sales taxes, taxes on the consumption of alcohol and tobacco, and import duties, among others,” says the study.
The study estimates that a typical Canadian family consisting of two parents and two children with an average household income of $169,296 will pay $16,950 for public health care this year. Couples without dependent children will pay an estimated $16,162. Single Canadians will pay $5,622 for health care insurance, and single parents with one child will pay $6,294.
Since 1997, the first year for which data is available, the cost of healthcare for the average Canadian family has increased substantially, and has risen more quickly than its income.
In fact, the cost of public health care insurance for the average Canadian family increased 4.2 times as fast as the cost of clothing, 2.1 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.8 times as fast as the cost of shelter, and 1.7 times as fast as the average income.
“Understanding how much Canadians actually pay for health care, and how much that amount has increased over time, is an important first step for taxpayers to assess the value and performance of the health-care system, and whether it’s financially sustainable,” Barua said.
