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.

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Latest findings

Total health expenditure in 2019–20 was $202.5 billion, a real increase of 1.8% over the year

Spending on hospitals was $83.5 billion, a real increase of 2.9% compared with the previous year

Expenditure per person in 2019–20 was $7,926, a real increase of 0.2% over the year

The highest expenditure condition group for females was Reproductive and maternal ($8.7 billion)

The highest expenditure condition group for males was Cardiovascular diseases ($6.7 billion)

Around 72% ($134 billion) of recurrent expenditure in 2018-19 could be attributed to specific disease groups

Highlights

Dynamic dataHealth expenditure Australia 2019–20
2.8%growth in recurrent health spending between 2018–19 and 2019–20
$83.5 billionwas spent on hospitals in 2019–20, and $66.9 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
$202.5 billionwas spent on health in 2019–20 or 10.2% of gross domestic product (GDP)—up from $195.4 billion in 2018–19
$142.6 billionof funding for health in 2019–20 was contributed by governments and $59.9 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