Healthcare spending will balloon to $10.2b this year

It will further expand in the next decade overtaking education expenditure.

Healthcare spending is expected to grow to almost $10.2b this year and will overtake education expenditure in the next 10 years due to growth in ageing population.

“By 2030, the total number of elderly will increase by about 450,000, to 900,000,” said Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat at the 2018 budget announcement yesterday. “We will have to build new healthcare capacity to meet the rising demand, and also invest in new medical technologies to improve care quality.”

The government in the next five years will build six more general and community hospitals, four new polyclinics, and more nursing homes and eldercare centres.

In line with this, Heng expected the average annual healthcare spending to contribute 3% or $3.6b in the country’s GDP over the next decade, which is 0.8 percentage point higher from the current 2.2% contribution today.