Overview

Good health and wellbeing is important—it influences not just how a person feels, but has impacts for society as a whole. The availability and quality of health and welfare programs are central to delivering these outcomes, but difficult to evaluate. Information about expenditure on health and welfare gives an indication of the priority placed on these goods and services among all others in the economy. In Australia, more is spent on health and welfare, both in dollar terms and as a proportion of spending overall, than any other type of expenditure.

Latest findings

Two-thirds of total health expenditure was funded by the Australian Government and state and territory governments Of all non-government entities, individuals were the biggest spenders at $30.6 billion The disease group with highest expenditure in 2015–16 was musculoskeletal disorders Capital expenditure decreased by $3.6 billion in real terms The highest expenditure condition group for males was cardiovascular diseases ($5.7 billion) The highest expenditure condition group for females was reproductive and maternal ($6.9 billion) Private health insurers spent on average $1,470 per person covered by a private health insurance policy Expenditure per person decreased by 0.4% to $7,485, the lowest yearly growth over the decade The highest expenditure condition was Other cardiovascular diseases ($5.6 billion) Total health expenditure in 2017–18 was $185.4 billion, a real increase of 1.2% over the year Around 73% ($117.0 billion) of recurrent expenditure was attributed to disease groups Spending on hospitals was $74.0 billion, an increase of $3.2 billion since 2016–17

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Highlights

Dynamic dataHealth expenditure Australia 2017–18
3.5%growth in recurrent health spending between 2016–17 and 2017–18
$74.0 billionwas spent on hospitals in 2017–18, and $63.4 billion on primary health care
$160.6 billionwas spent by governments on welfare in 2017–18—this compares with $121.1 billion in 2007–08
$185.4 billionwas spent on health in 2017–18 or 10% of gross domestic product (GDP)—up from $183.2 billion in 2016–17
$126.7 billionof funding for health in 2017–18 was contributed by governments and $58.8 billion by non-government sources 4.
$12.5 billionwas spent on the musculoskeletal disorders group and $10.4 billion was spent on cardiovascular diseases in 2015–16