Why Canada's Healthcare Costs Are Exploding
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Summary
In this episode, Mike Wixson and I discuss a recent report by Nadeem Ismail on the rapid growth of Canada's healthcare spending, and why it needs to change. We discuss the facts and the numbers, and where the money comes from.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, everyone. I'm here today with Mike, Mike Wixson, and I watched his show with Nadeem Ismail, and I called him and I said, we have to do a follow-up show.
00:00:25.180
And the reason is, I listened to them and I said, man, I need to get on and share some facts and some numbers to really talk through this issue.
00:00:35.200
This is a hot button, and I dealt with it when I did my annual budget shows, and I really touched the surface of it.
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I didn't go into it very deep. And, you know, it's one of those, healthcare is one of those segments where the numbers are increasing so rapidly that you really want to dig into and ask why.
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So, thanks, Mike. I'm glad you came aboard for another show.
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Well, thanks for watching the original one. You know, it's interesting because Nadeem did a great job.
00:01:04.040
That report really is, it's very straightforward, as he pointed out to me. It's meant to show us how much we spend per person in Canada on healthcare, on average.
00:01:15.360
And then, really, that was it. And, you know, what we pay for and how it's paid for and where this money comes from.
00:01:23.060
But what it didn't do is really take the deep dive that you and I started talking about that I think is worth sharing.
00:01:28.940
Yeah, and he did a great job. And I think what he looked at, he looked at public expenditures.
00:01:34.020
So, now, this is the interesting part of this discussion, which I get all fired up about, is we have public and private expenditures.
00:01:41.520
So, all of us know, you know, we go to the dentist, we pay for it ourself, or our benefit plan from our company pays for it.
00:01:47.020
So, those are called private. When we go to the hospital, that's public, right?
00:01:51.300
So, you know, he shared a number with us, and it's a public number. So, that $241 billion in public expenditures is one number.
00:02:02.580
But that's not the total expenditure. So, and I wanted to jump on and talk to you about it.
00:02:07.960
The total expenditure for 2024 is $372 billion.
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Yeah, it's actually an earthquaking, shattering number when you think about it.
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You think about the total government expenditures for 2024 were $500 billion.
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And then when you add up all our private and public healthcare expenditures, both provincially and federally,
00:02:34.260
because federally only makes the transfer payments from the feds for healthcare is only $62 billion.
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Yeah, and then you add all our private expenditures, and you have $372 billion.
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So, now it's an interesting game, right, healthcare, because we don't see it as Canadians.
00:02:56.300
You know, we, and it's funny, growing up, and I was lucky enough to, like I mentioned in previous shows,
00:03:01.940
I'm lucky enough to have worked in the U.S. and had healthcare benefits in the U.S.,
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and I'm lucky enough to have worked in Canada and grew up in Canada, and I am Canadian,
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have, you know, participated in the healthcare system here.
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So, you know, we, as Canadians, say I get free healthcare.
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Add up all the things you pay into as a Canadian.
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Your income tax, your EI, your CPP, your HST, your excise tax, provincial.
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Any revenues that the government collects goes into a big pot, a general fund, right?
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And then they distribute it, whether it be on the provincial or federal level, into programs.
00:03:49.920
So, the number works out not to be 5,000 per person, right, and per capita.
00:03:56.160
Now, here's the other interesting part with Nadeem's, you know, the numbers he shared with us.
00:04:00.840
He's giving us the number across the whole population.
00:04:10.460
You know, he divides the total expenditures, 241 billion.
00:04:15.180
He comes up with a number of roughly $5,000, and he says, that's what we pay for public health care.
00:04:23.900
But then I'm saying, no, no, that's not totally, you know, it's not the whole picture.
00:04:28.220
The whole picture, if you add in the private health care, you take out kids.
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00:04:34.040
You take out unemployment, you know, people who are unemployed.
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You kind of take all those people out of your system.
00:04:43.880
So, now, that number's growing radically larger, right?
00:04:53.800
We talked about the average per person, but not the average per earning Canadian.
00:05:05.020
It must be north of $30,000 per capita for working individuals.
00:05:11.280
Because if you think, or more, because we are covering, let's say, our dad and our mom.
00:05:16.880
Who are seniors and three kids, potentially, that are not earning.
00:05:20.560
It's just that middle group of people that are actually paying for the health care system.
00:05:27.280
So, you know, when we look at the public expenditure, it's around $5,000.
00:05:30.880
When we take out all those people, like you said, who aren't participating in the payment of it, you're probably, you know, you're around $12,000, $13,000 a person.
00:05:45.980
And, yeah, no, we did not extrapolate that, actually, in that discussion.
00:05:51.560
And it gets, so, you know, we throw around a lot of numbers.
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So, apples to apples, so we don't kind of confuse the audience.
00:06:05.120
So, if we look at the total population, that'll give us a better feel.
00:06:08.380
But I just wanted to kind of lay out for people that, you know.
00:06:17.980
So, at the end of the day, if you take the $372 billion, you divide that over the full population, it works around $9,000 a person.
00:06:34.720
And that is the standard metric against which we're going to compare, I think, in this example.
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So, you know, and then, you know, I wanted to, you know, Nick threw up a chart and I wanted to actually just point to it.
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You know, if you look at this, and this is another, this is a crazy stat.
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So, you look at our healthcare expenditures since 1975, right?
00:07:02.740
So, this is, and you see now us hitting the $372 billion mark.
00:07:08.280
And you think to yourself, wow, are we ever accelerating at a rapid pace?
00:07:14.480
The U.S., when you look at the, when you look at the mirror graph in the U.S. right now, the U.S. is actually accelerating at this pace.
00:07:21.480
So, we've come out of, you know, our COVID times, and we just kept growing rapidly.
00:07:26.320
Like a lot of things, we never went down, right?
00:07:31.240
Well, I've often said this about how we operate at the government level, is you can't unring a bell.
00:07:37.260
So, you know, COVID came, so, yeah, we can't go back.
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But the other thing is, you take a look at that graph, and yeah, there's a, you can see the growth of our country alongside that.
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But then you can also see this enormous jump in the last two, three years, and even the forecast goes beyond that.
00:08:00.640
It must be more people taxing the system in our country.
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00:08:07.600
So, which you're going to talk about in a minute, it doesn't, you know, it'd be great if it actually correlated directly with the number of people entering the country, but it doesn't, right?
00:08:15.740
Like a lot of things we do, we just seem to have stepped up the pace of our expenditures, thinking, you know, that if we spent more money, our healthcare system would get better.
00:08:29.960
And I think, quite frankly, we did that during COVID, and we kept going.
00:08:33.200
And, you know, the cries for more hospitals, more beds, more physicians, all that stuff keep coming, and the expenditures keep coming.
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But, you know, we're going to do some comparisons in a minute.
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But, you know, that leads us to a bunch of other assumptions, you know, where do we sit, how do we perform all those good things?
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You would assume that, you know, as we make comparisons against other countries, we're going to, we're going to find ourselves, you know, in a category among others that are in a similar situation for wait times and stress and struggles in the system.
00:09:10.220
So that is one of the indicators that is a challenge right now.
00:09:12.960
So we're burning the system a little harder with the, you know, more aging people, more health issues, more everything else.
00:09:19.620
Our immigration policies, quite frankly, have burdened our system.
00:09:22.960
You know, you and I talked about before the show, you know, more people enter the country.
00:09:31.220
Well, one of the big issues that I think about, and, you know, I say this off the top of my head and based on anecdotal experience of my own, which is, you know, there are a number of people that have entered our country that are not healthy.
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00:09:44.860
You know, they're not screened for cancer or genetic disease or even, you know, advanced conditions of any kind.
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And some of those are very expensive cases that we need to bring back to health.
00:10:01.720
You know, we decided that immigration was a key priority in the country.
00:10:06.940
We moved a bunch of people who currently used to do that, screen people, test, make sure people didn't have issues coming into the country and basically said, go over and just get people in the country.
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We just waived them because we felt it was more important to move people into the country.
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00:10:36.240
I can't help but think that that does clog the system when...
00:10:41.720
It's very difficult to even get clinical time to give blood or get an ultrasound or anything.
00:10:47.920
And the number of people, I don't know if you're sitting, when you're sitting in your local life labs or wherever you're going, I don't know if you've noticed when you're talking to the people there, you know, they're there every day.
00:11:00.460
So, like, when I'm talking to people and I'm sitting there, you know, how are you?
00:11:10.540
You know, so they have illnesses that require them to be monitoring themselves and more and more, which you never used to.
00:11:26.300
You never really got to chat with anyone because it was so fast.
00:11:30.740
And, you know, if you went the second time, quite frankly, you'd never see the person you saw yesterday.
00:11:37.060
But when I was a kid, if the doctor needed blood from you, they took it.
00:11:45.840
But, no, I think that when you have so many people arriving with serious illnesses and a responsibility to care for these people, that I think is going to have an impact.
00:11:56.600
Alongside, yes, we did not unring this bell from COVID.
00:12:02.400
Our GDP is, and I'm sure you'll address this, our GDP is going the other way.
00:12:08.680
You know, for those people who say, well, I paid into the health care system, right?
00:12:13.160
Just so we're all, like, fully aware, the money you pay through those avenues I talked about, through income tax, EI, CPP, all those things you paid into, don't even come close to covering your health care.
00:12:31.820
I'm very appreciative that everyone did who worked, right?
00:12:34.960
But right now, the actual cost, that $372 billion, is way over what you would have paid into it or contributed.
00:12:51.680
Part of our deficits, you know, this is part of the reason we're, you know, we're going to be doing a show on the, with the budget officer, you know, talking about his report.
00:13:00.740
And quite frankly, you know, this is the reason we're talking about 60, 70, you know, if we add in military $100 billion deficits, right?
00:13:11.540
It seems almost an impossibility to rein it in.
00:13:16.300
And yet, other countries with similar GDP are managing it.
00:13:22.920
But, you know, before we get there, I want to just do a quick thing.
00:13:25.580
I want to go through what this number is broken down by.
00:13:29.600
So, Nick, if you go to the next slide, the next slide actually just shows us, which is a really good slide, and it's kind of a scary slide.
00:13:38.560
And it's what we were talking about a minute ago.
00:13:41.020
It talks, it shows you basically that our healthcare is projecting to keep scaling.
00:13:46.200
So you can see the 2020 jump, you know, so we jumped up, you know, 12% of GDP.
00:13:52.380
And then you can see we're going back and it's starting to ramp up again.
00:13:55.940
And so, and now, to your point, Mike, is GDP potentially may go down, right?
00:14:01.500
So if the tariff predictions and everything going on and the Kuzma negotiations don't go well, and we see a little bit of depressed times, recession, we're going to see a little bit of flattening of our GDP.
00:14:15.840
But we're seeing an escalation in our healthcare expenses.
00:14:19.420
And so that means that our healthcare grows, the ability to pay for it shrinks.
00:14:30.600
Okay, so this one, so this one is by category, right?
00:14:33.540
So this is, this is kind of one of my, interesting when I went into it.
00:14:38.360
So, you know, 100%, of course, we're dealing with percentages here.
00:14:43.980
25% of that $372 billion, right, goes to hospitals.
00:14:49.580
So it makes sense, you know, we put, we put into our healthcare system, a quarter of it goes to build our beds, hospitals, whatever.
00:14:56.980
That's equipment, everything in, operations, maintenance, overhead.
00:15:02.520
Drugs, this one was shocking because I couldn't figure this out in my mind.
00:15:05.960
We're 13.7% for drugs, which I thought we were the land of generic drugs, but it doesn't appear we are.
00:15:15.040
We're at almost the same number as comparable countries that don't have generic brands.
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So when I looked into this, we've created a whole subset of new brands, which we say are better, more improved.
00:15:36.000
So yeah, the generic, it's generic plus the plus.
00:15:42.540
It's a new improved, but our cost per dosage is basically the same as a non-generic drug.
00:15:51.120
So we take the generic drug and we enhance it, therefore making it a more expensive or comparable.
00:16:01.440
So that's, you know, other medical offices, therapy, whatever.
00:16:13.140
So, you know, hopefully down the road and we, you know, a lot of these stats, which I'm very thankful that the Canadian Institute of Healthcare, you know, provided, which is great.
00:16:26.340
They do an amazing job at creating the stats that tell us about our healthcare system.
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And the Fraser Institute guys, of course, their report was amazing.
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And we really appreciate the numbers and sharing them with us.
00:16:44.460
And there are some reports, which we're going to do on future shows, which rank ourself, the number of physicians per province and the number of physicians in Canada ranking or verse other countries.
00:17:00.000
So we'll do another show and we're going to go through that.
00:17:03.300
Hospital beds, number of physicians, all that good stuff.
00:17:08.300
Because I take a look at these numbers, Paul, and it's interesting, but I look at hospitals, 25%.
00:17:14.300
Physicians and other professionals come in at about 24%.
00:17:20.020
So hospitals and people are the two major expenses here.
00:17:26.060
You know, public health, a little shocking to me that it's only 6.1%.
00:17:32.700
But then again, what does public health actually do except for create awareness and, I guess, during a time of COVID, make sure that we're vaccinated and informed.
00:17:43.060
It's the administration that gets us, you know.
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We have almost 10% administration cost built into our system, right?
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Capital is money required to build facilities, buy equipment, all that good stuff.
00:17:58.640
So add that to hospitals, institutions, and we come in closer to, you know, almost 30%.
00:18:14.760
Actually, add to it other institutions and you're almost 40%.
00:18:20.200
But, you know, per capita, that's where it gets scary.
00:18:25.300
So now, right, we look at where are we in comparison to other countries?
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So not shocking that the U.S. is higher than us.
00:18:41.980
And if you look at this, now this is broken down by public versus private spending.
00:18:48.560
So, of course, you know, you can see it's almost 50-50 in the U.S.
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So in the U.S., you have your public expenditures, which, you know, mostly for people who need social assistance, people who need some help with their health care.
00:19:02.580
And then you have people who buy their own plans, the HMOs, their own private health care plans, their insurance, all that good stuff, right?
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So basically, we're still mostly public health care, right?
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And then, quite frankly, 29% is our other incidentals, dental, other therapies, things like that, right?
00:19:32.460
So and then now it's Australia, which I wanted to point out today.
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So Australia has kind of taken a little different approach, and they've tried to go off, and they've tried to tinker with their health care system to improve it.
00:19:53.500
And I think, Mike, you know, let's talk about that for a minute.
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Well, it's interesting because, you know, we take a look.
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And this is, like I say, just discussion between you and I, and you're better with the numbers than I'll ever be.
00:20:05.500
But I look at 47-53 on the U.S. side of things, and then I see Canada at 30%.
00:20:12.100
And the chart's interesting because that bar is not 30% of that bar, okay?
00:20:16.340
So if we're at 30-70, we're really not that far off, you know, 50-50, truthfully.
00:20:23.680
I mean, we're 20% more per capita, and we're almost in the same boat.
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And then you take a look at Australia, that it's almost a carbon copy.
00:20:34.080
But I think, Paul, the real issue there becomes, okay, the money is the money is.
00:20:42.400
But the end product, I think, is really what's a startling revelation through all of this.
00:21:00.260
Wait lists in Australia, 39% will wait for one month to see a specialist.
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In Canada, 61% of patients wait one month to three months to get a specialist.
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Canada, 20% of patients wait more than a year for elective surgery.
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In Australia, 12% have a wait that is longer than six months.
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Canada, only 43% can get same day or next day a GP appointment in Australia.
00:21:39.580
So take me through that again, because that's very interesting.
00:22:08.440
Which is one of the most annoying things for me.
00:22:10.640
I don't know about you, but, you know, I call and I had my son recently had an issue,
00:22:15.080
you know, and I called up and, you know, yeah, next week.
00:22:24.180
And the funny thing is, so now I'm going through it.
00:22:31.320
He says, well, you better see a specialist because he had it last week, but we don't
00:22:35.040
really know what it was because you weren't here last week.
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So now I get this call, you know, today, you know, we have a specialist appointment.
00:22:46.400
He's running around playing the guitar, having fun.
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And now you want me to go all the way downtown to go to a specialist a week after he had
00:23:00.640
You know, hopefully he makes it till his appointment or he'll be better and you'll cancel.
00:23:07.220
We, we, we were in that scenario and like, let's go back elective surgery.
00:23:16.920
You know, if you can't get primary care and triage a problem, you might be leaving cancer in
00:23:24.100
somebody that's going to kill them or at least tax our system a heck of a lot more and the
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00:23:30.480
Um, we're going that we're going through that with a colleague right now.
00:23:38.280
Because yeah, you think to yourself, somebody needs to deal with this today.
00:23:46.620
And he's been going at it since the summer, summer, summer.
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He's almost three quarters of a year before he'll have a life saving treatment.
00:24:06.440
29% of patients report, uh, uh, waits of four hours in Australia.
00:24:21.440
Can someone fly over to Australia and find out what they're doing differently?
00:24:25.840
Like, seriously, it must be, I mean, there can't be, there could be a small team of people.
00:24:32.180
Go to the races, go to the beach, have some fun, maybe, you know, have a few drinks, you
00:24:36.880
know, go see a couple of kangaroos, uh, get the Tasmanian devil.
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You know, I don't mind, you know, take some, some taxpayer dollars, have some fun too,
00:24:47.900
but please go see and find out what they're doing.
00:24:55.200
And I shouldn't say this and I don't mean this in a, in a bad way, but you know, for
00:24:59.180
years, Australia was kind of a little bit of a, you know, we joked around about Australia
00:25:06.520
You know, we all watch, uh, you know, uh, what's his Dundee?
00:25:13.620
That was the worst Australian accent ever.
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We always watch, you know, we watch Crocodile Dundee movies with, oh man, they're backwards.
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You know, they, they, you know, they go into the outback and look at how backwards they
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You know, well, heck they have a better hospital system than us.
00:25:29.560
So sorry about the stereotyping Australia, but yet earned it.
00:25:37.780
Paul in Australia, 45% of people carry private hospital, uh, coverage, giving them faster access
00:25:49.160
And that model that we need to go investigate there, I think is this hybrid model where you
00:25:56.000
Even if I'll give you an example, our friend that we want faster treatment for.
00:26:11.060
I mean, he'd be heading to Europe or the U S to get the treatment faster.
00:26:15.280
So, I mean that, I think, you know, the numbers say that we are on par with some other Commonwealth
00:26:24.460
So like, you know, if, uh, and let's go to the next slide, Nick.
00:26:30.800
So here's our healthcare spending with other countries.
00:26:41.900
So the, the U S per capita spend $15,113, right?
00:26:52.060
We just broke down seven grand more than what we're paying.
00:26:54.320
So, you know, that, you know, that market, we just saw that graph that showed, they basically
00:27:03.520
Now, when I looked into this is very interesting, which I mentioned earlier, I, and I've got to
00:27:14.480
So prior to COVID, this number was half almost.
00:27:20.740
So this number has since COVID, this number has skyrocketed.
00:27:25.180
So they're still paying for COVID for the infrastructure that was built in El Rapido.
00:27:29.260
So whatever happened here, uh, literally has jettisoned them into a huge cost increase
00:27:34.700
on healthcare, which they must be screaming about, quite frankly.
00:27:42.700
The Netherlands, uh, pretty much where we are, 8,631.
00:28:00.120
We're in the same neighborhood as France and Australia.
00:28:09.980
So not only did the U S go up, we went up another thousand dollars by the time we went
00:28:16.940
So, cause the only comparative numbers, that's a pretty, that's a pretty heavy increase.
00:28:22.060
You figure, uh, over, over the scan of the first, the first graph.
00:28:26.160
One eighth bit compared to the first graph that we saw from 1975 to now.
00:28:30.920
If you get lost in the slides that we're talking about, cause you're listening, go ahead,
00:28:37.540
And, uh, you, you can download the, uh, the PowerPoint that Paul made here.
00:28:41.480
Now the average, actually, it's interesting, the UK, which is roughly 7,600, 958, the average
00:28:52.580
So we're, we're well above the average, especially when we come into 2024, um, which is, you know,
00:28:59.220
it just gives you a feel, you know, cause people always ask, where are we?
00:29:02.560
Well, you're not getting your healthcare for free, right?
00:29:06.160
You're paying a significant amount and you're paying, uh, at the top, we're in the top six
00:29:11.680
big spenders for healthcare in the world right now in the developed world.
00:29:14.980
I was going to say, these are all well-developed countries that were compared to, and there
00:29:18.880
are other countries that have healthcare systems at work.
00:29:22.240
Well, look at, you know, even comparison ones, like Nadim brought it up, Germany, the Netherlands,
00:29:27.440
And when you go to there, you're not going to find some of the critical issues we have
00:29:33.300
And, and, and that's why back to your point, let's go discover what model is actually reasonable
00:29:41.500
It doesn't seem, uh, you know, again, uh, what's the outbreak outbreak, uh, analysis.
00:29:49.000
Let's go take a look at why this system is broken and then go fix it.
00:29:55.900
You just touched on something, outbreak analysis, stand by for a series on outbreak analysis
00:30:02.000
on TPL media, because if you don't know what this theory is, you need to understand it.
00:30:07.460
It's, it's really the basis on which we need to take a look at almost every problem in this
00:30:12.560
Especially government problems like healthcare, right?
00:30:16.980
So Nick, go to the, I think there's another slide.
00:30:29.700
So remember this is going up in our case, but we've launched, uh, in this case, we've
00:30:34.080
launched from number six in the developed world to number five.
00:30:38.440
So we outspent, we kind of hopped ahead of a few other ones that fell down, like the
00:30:42.820
Netherlands and, uh, Sweden, um, don't spend as much per GDP as we do.
00:30:48.680
Their GDPs are better comparatively and they don't spend as much.
00:30:54.540
So when you look at us, we're now, uh, at 11.2%, the U S being the highest at 16.5.
00:31:02.780
So, you know, the, the chart clearly shows that something in the U S isn't working.
00:31:09.860
Because we're escalating at a rapid rate with a GDP that's struggling and, you know,
00:31:15.860
We're not getting, once again, we're not getting medical attention.
00:31:18.740
No, no, we're not getting quality of care, but we're also, uh, taking more money, throwing
00:31:27.760
And as our GDP struggles, you know, the U S the, I think I've done it on previous shows,
00:31:35.600
Like we are not even close to the U S we're like half of their GDP growth.
00:31:39.660
So they actually have the room to adjust within their GDP.
00:31:44.120
That insane number, which I think once again, has more to do with paying the price, the,
00:31:50.580
the previous price on, on COVID spending in the U S that they're still, they're still
00:31:55.880
They never, it's one of those things, a lot of things in our life, you know, whether
00:31:58.940
it be groceries, uh, building materials, we hit COVID, they went up, they never came
00:32:04.660
Well, they bought a lot of stuff during COVID that you can't return.
00:32:08.600
So I think, you know, what, what they had to do as, as part of their outbreak response,
00:32:21.260
And that, the bill for that, I think is still reflected and maybe still being, being
00:32:26.960
Cause the whole world experienced this, this was a shared experience.
00:32:31.060
So, you know, I think maybe those numbers come down, but once again, we never unring the
00:32:37.060
We never go backward and say, Hey, look, we can spend less.
00:32:40.780
Well, but we have, you know, but can we, I guess that's what we're kind of coming up
00:32:46.200
That's our whole, uh, uh, economic outlook that we're going to be going through in the
00:32:52.260
Can we, can we, where does it, where does it, where does the rubber hit the road and
00:32:56.520
where do we have to make some of those tough decisions and say, these things can't keep
00:33:03.760
You know, quite frankly, and I, you know, I know the bunch of, uh, baby boomers are
1.00
00:33:08.060
going to be like, ah, you know, like they're going to be screaming at the generation under
0.99
00:33:11.400
that says, yeah, let me, let me pay for what I need.
00:33:16.740
That's the, I think that that is, we just recently heard Paul, almost 1 million Canadians
00:33:22.860
walked out of the emergency room before getting triage care.
00:33:30.920
But if you're going to use the emergency room now, should there be a user fee before you
00:33:35.840
get in the, I'll tell you what, yeah, if I can get into the next hour for sure, I'll
00:33:42.700
Should there be a blood user fee to get blood, you know, to get your blood tested?
00:33:50.060
Should we start to, you know, at least can we have an option?
00:33:52.560
And like Australia does, they have a private opt-in option.
00:33:56.440
Like let's give commerce a chance in this regard.
00:33:59.260
A lot of great clinics around the world are private.
00:34:07.020
So, you know, it's interesting because the, uh, Canadian Institute of Health, you know,
00:34:14.180
They actually came up with some key findings and I, I really wanted to go through them
00:34:18.220
with you today because I think it's really important, um, you know, to, to highlight
00:34:24.580
them and then talk about, you know, some of the other challenges we're going through.
00:34:29.840
So we've already talked about, you know, uh, Canada is expected, you know, we're going
00:34:38.800
And we did, um, it's anticipated that health expenditures will represent 12.4 of our GDP.
00:34:49.340
Um, healthcare spending in Canada is expected to increase by 5.7 in 24 and rise 4.5, uh,
00:34:57.380
rise, uh, after a rise of 4.5 in 23 and 1.7 in 22.
00:35:09.380
And I think that's very important, uh, that that's, let's, let's, let's take a look at
00:35:31.480
You know, is your, is your income going up by, no, that's my first thought was I can't
00:35:38.100
I can't afford healthcare to be more expensive.
00:35:50.580
Our hospital expenditures are increasing by 6.3 in 23 and 6.1 in 24.
00:35:57.200
Physician expenditures are projected to increase by 7.5 and 4.4 in 24.
00:36:03.280
Drug expenditures are projected to increase by 5.6 in 23 and 3.8 in 24.
00:36:09.200
So all these things are going up 23, 24, they're going up in 25, right?
00:36:13.860
So we just keep going up, you know, the numbers we're getting, we're, we're seeing from, you
00:36:19.120
know, last year's numbers, of course, and the year before, but when we get to the 25 numbers,
00:36:27.820
The biggest issue in this healthcare thing financially is that we're making no more,
00:36:35.540
in some cases, less money per capita, but our healthcare continues to soar, which we cannot
00:36:41.460
pay for because we don't have the income to do it at the federal level or the provincial
00:36:47.960
And so we just keep transferring payments to the provinces that just keeps hitting the
00:36:55.940
So we don't keep, and we keep yelling about poor service.
00:37:05.500
Like it really, you know, it's time and, you know, and I think it, I mean, that's an
00:37:10.320
It needs something needs done and it, but it is an easy thing to say, but has anyone ever
00:37:17.500
I mean, just a couple of points to that have stuck out in my mind.
00:37:20.720
We have generic drugs that our pharmaceuticals are incredible.
00:37:24.700
We have one of the highest rates of spending in the, uh, developed world, in the developed
00:37:35.980
And we don't have an end in spending or increase on spending in sight in any manner.
00:37:42.780
Nobody has their eyes on how do we level this out?
00:37:46.700
How do we bring this closer to our GDP, uh, ratios?
00:37:54.320
Honestly, it should be, you know, we should be tailoring it to our GDP.
00:37:57.700
There should be a common in, you know, rational increase every year based on GDP growth.
00:38:07.880
But, you know, and, and this is the crazy part, Mike, when, when you go through, um, take a look
00:38:17.260
So, you know, we came up with a, you know, and everyone's well aware that we came up with a bunch
00:38:23.740
Whether it be, uh, Medicaid, so prescriptions, you know, we've got dental now.
00:38:42.840
It was great, you know, and we sat there and we said, you know, we're gonna remember, I don't
00:38:46.500
know if you guys remember, but, you know, there are several federal sessions where, you know,
00:38:50.980
in order to avoid, uh, non-confidence, there was monies given by the government to create
00:38:57.640
programs going, whether they be dental care programs.
00:39:00.380
And, you know, they stood up and said, we got dental care for all the people who can't
00:39:17.280
The majority of Canadians are going to pay heavily.
00:39:27.200
You know, uh, and of course, you know, we continue, uh, to talk about solutions for private and
00:39:36.360
public health care, uh, hybrid, you know, there's, we continue to lobby against, you
00:39:41.980
know, going, uh, there's a huge lobby against any private health care that ever comes about.
00:39:49.620
So if there's a, there's a lobby against it, what's the solution?
00:39:54.540
Well, a lobby, a lobby cannot be what prevents us from doing the right thing.
00:40:05.280
I don't know what their agenda is necessarily in keeping it all public, but I do know this,
00:40:11.160
a lobby group needs to be there saying now we need privatization, at least a hybrid model
00:40:16.940
of it because we can't afford this and it's not working.
00:40:19.560
Well, you know, and truthfully, you know, two things are the main factors that keep it
00:40:25.100
They lobby because, uh, number one, it's highly unionized.
00:40:31.100
You know, you want to keep the, you want to keep the security of a union.
00:40:34.920
Therefore, you want to keep in a public system.
00:40:41.600
If you go to private healthcare, quite frankly, a lot of those are not pensioned or unionized
00:40:50.140
But also we can't afford it in the private sector.
00:40:56.200
It opens the door to so many professionals we have without employment.
00:41:04.560
It gives us, you know, uh, new economies to think of.
00:41:08.560
And instead of paying all of this healthcare with our taxes, they could be taxing privatized
00:41:14.660
companies with healthcare and increasing our bottom line at the federal level.
00:41:22.660
And quite frankly, if unionization and pension security is the key issue at the table, figure
00:41:28.140
out a way to deal with private companies to deal with those issues.
00:41:31.220
Those issues, you know, the model should not be broken because we can't deal with two
00:41:36.740
We, our healthcare providers should be well taken care of, compensated, secured, and pension.
00:41:43.020
But those should not be the issues that break the system because we want to stick in a public
00:41:55.300
By the time your appointment comes up, you might qualify for a senior's discount.
00:42:01.780
In Australia, you'd already be treated and back at the beach.
00:42:08.220
Well, thanks, Paul, for taking us through these numbers because that's the perspective
00:42:11.820
alongside us complaining about terrible care that actually kind of magnifies the problem.
00:42:28.580
Because your vote comes directly out of your wallet.
00:42:35.100
And then, please, you know, we're going to do more shows and we're going to keep breaking
00:42:38.440
down health care stats, which I think are very important to keep the dialogue going.