While Newfoundland and Labrador is expected to spend more than $5-billion on healthcare this year, healthcare expenditures are starting to level off.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information recently released their 26th edition of the annual publication on health expenditure trends.
Manager of health expenditures at CIHI, Chris Kuchciak, explains that provincial spending on healthcare is expected to have about a 1 per cent growth in 2022.
He says in comparison, levels were around 2 and 3 per cent pre-pandemic, and around 6 per cent in 2020 and 2021.
Kuchciak likens it to a horse race. In 2020 and 2021 he says COVID was driving the rates forward. However, now COVID is pulling back as the driver and long term trends like healthcare use, population growth and population ageing are taking over and will “level up” spending from here.
