title: Publicly financed healthcare and income inequality in Canada.
abstract: Income inequality is currently the focus of considerable public and policy attention. Public services such as healthcare and education play a role in reducing income inequality in the population. This study looks at how healthcare affects the distribution of income across five income groups. Specifically, it estimates the tax contributions and the value of benefits received from physician services, drugs and hospital services over a person's lifetime. We found that benefits received from publicly funded healthcare in Canada reduce the income gap between the highest- and lowest-income groups by 16%. This analysis provides a starting point for future research to explore the distributional effects of different options for financing healthcare.
authors.affiliation: Senior researcher with the Bureau of Health Information, New South Wales, Australia, and was a program consultant with Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) at the time of this writing.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Corscadden
authors.affiliation: Senior researcher with CIHI and an assistant professor, status only, with the School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluations at the University of Toronto, in Toronto, Ontario.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Allin
authors.affiliation: Canada research chair in population health modelling/populomics at the University of Ottawa, in Ottawa, Ontario.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wolfson
authors.affiliation: Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, and an associate professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society and the Department of Economics at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Grignon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002170:Canada; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics*; D005380:Financing, Government / Q000191:economics*; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult