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Health care expenditure in Iceland 1998-2007

Statistics Iceland releases now a new issue of Statistical Series. This issue presents first and foremost the health expenditures in Iceland in recent years, but it makes also a short comparison of health expenditure between Iceland and other OECD countries. The issue also introduces a new system of classification of health expenditure (The System of Health Accounts) and the preliminary results upon its implementation in the country.
 
Total expenditure on health has grown significantly since the beginning of the 1980s or from 6.4% of GDP to 9.2% of GDP in 2007. This figure amounted to 117.3 billion ISK in 2007. Measured in this way, the highest level was reached in 2003 or 10.4% of GDP.

Of total health expenditure in Iceland, the general government expenditure was 96.8 billion ISK and the private expenditure 20.5 billion ISK. Over a quarter of a century, the public expenditure on health has increased from 5.5% to 7.6% of GDP. During the same time, households’ health expenditure has doubled, or from 0.8% of GDP to 1.6%. The households’ health expenditure has risen substantially since 1980 as a percent of total health expenditure, or from 12.8% to 17.5% in 2007. The share reached its peak in 1998 at 19.6% of GDP.

In order to estimate the real growth of total health expenditure from 1980, total public and total private health expenditures are deflated by the public and private consumption indices, respectively. At the beginning of the 1980s, total health expenditure amounted to roughly 41 billion ISK (in 2007 prices) compared with 117 billion ISK in 2007. The expenditure on health services in that period has therefore more than trebled, a 190% rise. Per capita, the health expenditure has more than doubled or from 170 thousand ISK in the beginning of the 1980s (in 2007 prices) to 377 thousand ISK in 2007 (reflecting a 110% rise over this time period). However, in the last six years these figures have not changed much, around 375 thousand ISK per capita at 2007 price level. 

The total health expenditure in OECD countries was around 9% on average in 2005, but the share between countries varies greatly. In the United States, this percentage reached 15.3% of GDP in 2005 compared with 6% in South Korea. In Iceland total health expenditure was 9.5% of the GDP in 2005, 10.4% in 2004 and 9.2% in 2007. Total health outlay in Norway, Sweden and Denmark comprised 9.1% of the GDP in 2005, while in France and Germany these figures stood at 11.1% and 10.7% respectively. On this scale, Iceland was in 10th - 11th place of the OECD countries in 2005 with 9.5% of GDP spent on health services.

Health care expenditure in Iceland - Statistical Series

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