VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – The cost of health is getting more expensive in BC at a time when funding support from Ottawa is getting reduced, according to Auditor General Carol Bellringer’s latest report.

Bellringer found the $19.2 billion spent last year on healthcare was three times more than education, and costs are still going up.

“Between 2013 and 2018, health care expenses are projected to increase by $2.7 billion. This is more than the combined budgets of the 11 smallest ministries,” she says.

Bellringer is also reporting $4.5 billion dollars worth of transfer payments from Ottawa last year will be significantly reduced in April.

“So it will be something that will need to be managed going forward, but we do draw attention to the pressure on the system and just the whole magnitude of the whole ministry. Indeed it must be managed quite carefully.”

She adds, since 2006, federal transfer payments have grown by six per cent a year, but the money sent to BC last year will soon be cut in half.

“As of this April, it will only grow at about three per cent per year. As a result of the drop, the provinces and the territories argue this will lower the amount of federal support for health care from 23 per cent down to 20 per cent of overall provincial budgets.”

Bellringer says rising costs might threaten the provincial government’s ability to keep providing services because health spending accounts for about 37 per cent of total provincial expenses; three times more than we spend on education.

She also found spending per person in BC is about 45 dollars less than the national average of nearly $4,100.

The full report can be viewed here.