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

Private health insurers spent on average $1,532 per person covered by a private hospital insurance policy The disease group with highest expenditure in 2015–16 was musculoskeletal disorders Spending on hospitals was $79.0 billion, an increase of 3.7% compared with the previous year More than two-thirds of total health expenditure was funded by the Australian Government & state & territory governments Around 73% ($117.0 billion) of recurrent expenditure was attributed to disease groups The highest expenditure condition group for females was reproductive and maternal ($6.9 billion) Of all non-government entities, individuals were the biggest spenders at $31.8 billion The highest expenditure condition was Other cardiovascular diseases ($5.6 billion) Expenditure per person increased by 1.5% to $7,772 The highest expenditure condition group for males was cardiovascular diseases ($5.7 billion) Total health expenditure in 2018–19 was $195.7 billion, a real increase of 3.1% over the year

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Highlights

Dynamic dataHealth expenditure Australia 2018–19
2.8%growth in recurrent health spending between 2017–18 and 2018–19
$79.0 billionwas spent on hospitals in 2018–19, and $65.5 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
$195.7 billionwas spent on health in 2018–19 or 10% of gross domestic product (GDP)—up from $189.8 billion in 2017–18
$133.6 billionof funding for health in 2018–19 was contributed by governments and $62.1 billion by non-government sources
$12.5 billionwas spent on the musculoskeletal disorders group and $10.4 billion was spent on cardiovascular diseases in 2015–16