What percent of the annual income for public health care in Canada is
spent on administration of the health care plan?

bbc-ga:

The Canadian health care system is in the midst of a reform to try to
minimize the overhead, and maximize the amount of tax money that
actually goes towards health care (such a novel concept! I'm a
Canadian, I can say that...)

The federal Ministry of Health's administrative costs are part of the
overall administrative costs of the federal government. While the
specifics are tracked separately, it would not be fair to say that
these costs are part of the administration of the health care plan, as
the federal ministry's mandate is to promote healthy living (programs
such as ParticipAction), health protection (they regulate drugs), and
to provide national oversight over diseases and conditions.

In the area of health care, their role is spelled out on their website:

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http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/care/index.html

"The federal government, the ten provinces, and the three territories
have key roles to play in the health care system in Canada.

The federal government is responsible for:

setting and administering national principles or standards for the
health care system through the Canada Health Act (for more
information, visit the Canada Health Act Web site);
assisting in the financing of provincial health care services through
fiscal transfers;
delivering direct health services to specific groups including
veterans, native Canadians, persons living on reserves, military
personnel, inmates of federal penitentiaries and the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police;
fulfilling other health-related functions such as health protection,
disease prevention, and health promotion.
The provincial and territorial governments are responsible for:

managing and delivering insured health services (for more information
on these health care insurance plans, visit the provincial and
territorial submissions to the Canada Health Act Annual Report);
planning, financing, and evaluating the provision of hospital care,
physician and allied health care services, and
managing some aspects of prescription care and public health."

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Further information about national health spending is available at:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/english/care/spending.html

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You may also be interested in this press release from December 2003
from the Canadian Institute for Health Information:

http://secure.cihi.ca/cihiweb/dispPage.jsp?cw_page=media_17dec2003_e

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The provinces and territories are indeed audited by the federal
ministry, as required by the Canada Health Act. The most recently
available report is for 2001-2002, and can be found at:

Canada Health Act - Provincial-Territorial submissions to the Canada
Health Act Annual Report 2001-2002
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/medicare/prov-e.htm
 
=============


For BC Medical Services Plan, admin costs are about 1%

http://www.healthservices.gov.bc.ca/msp/quickfacts.html 

For Alberta Health & Wellness, the percentage spent on administration is about 1%:

http://www.health.gov.ab.ca/reading/facts.html#dollar


Not all provinces make their medical services plan administration
overhead costs easy to find out. However, you can visit each of the
provincial and territorial websites to review the information that
they ARE willing to reveal, or you can go through the individual
submissions to the Annual Report mentioned above to deduce the
percentage. As you indicated that your primary interest is in Alberta,
I hope that the information above is of use to you.

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

You might have to go deeper to the individual provinces, since they're
managed at the provincial level.

What an interesting thought!  It seems as though the federal
government charges for its Administrative costs, and the each province
takes its administrative cut.  It's a wonder that there is anything
left.

Can you tell me. first, about the federal costs and, second, Alberta's?
Aren't there annual audits ot something of the sort?

Thanks for your help.

BBC