Canadian family of four will pay $21K towards public heath care this year: report

An infographic from the Fraser Institute illustrates how much various people pay toward health care through taxes. Photo by Handout

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The cost of public health care insurance has skyrocketed in this century, outpacing growth in the cost of food, shelter and even wages, according to a new report from the Fraser Institute. It notes that a typical family of four will pay more than $21,000 for public health care insurance this year, more than twice the amount as in 1997, the first year for which data is available.

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“Canadians pay a substantial amount of money for public health care through a variety of taxes, even if we don’t pay directly for medical services,” said Nadeem Esmail, the group’s director of health policy and co-author of the report, titled The Price of Public Health Care Insurance, 2026.

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Or as the report puts it: “Health care in Canada is not ‘free.'” But because there is no “dedicated” health insurance tax, it’s difficult for people to calculate the true cost they pay towards the public health care system.

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A patient is wheeled on a stretcher into Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital’s emergency room. Photo by Marcos Townsend /Postmedia

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“The purpose of this research bulletin is to help individual Canadians and their families better understand how much health care actually costs them personally so they can determine whether they are receiving good value for their tax dollars,” it says.

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Crunching the numbers, the report notes that last year $261.1 billion in tax dollars were spent on publicly funded health care. Dividing that figure by the number of Canadians gives a figure of about $6,269 per person in 2025.

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“However, Canadians do not pay equal amounts of tax each year,” the report notes, given that children pay no tax, and higher-income earners pay more than others.

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Taking tax rates into account, the study estimates that a typical Canadian family of two parents and two children, with an average household income of $202,885, will pay $21,115 for public health care insurance this year. Couples without dependent children will pay almost as much, an estimated $19,225.

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Single Canadians meanwhile are expected to pay $6,464 for public health care insurance, and single parents with one child will pay $6,966.

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A chart from the Fraser Institute report shows the rising costs of public health care insurance against other costs. Photo by Handout

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In absolute terms, the average health-care tax burden in 1997 was $3,412, and it has risen to an estimated $12,924 for the coming year. That’s an increase of 278.8 per cent, or almost quadruple the cost over a 30-year period. But in the same time period, the Consumer Price Index rose by just 85.1 per cent, average wages grew by 160.1 per cent, the cost of shelter rose 180.2 per cent, and food by 123.5 per cent.

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Even taking inflation into account, the cost of public health care has almost doubled for a couple with no children (rising 97.1 per cent since 1997) and has more than doubled for all other groups, rising from between 118 per cent and 131 per cent depending on the makeup of the family.