Variations in Lifetime Healthcare Costs across a Population

The mean costs of providing healthcare increase with age, but within every age/sex cohort there is substantial variation. Moreover, this variation does not disappear over the users' lifetime. This study applies Markov modelling to administrative data to examine the variability of healthcare costs currently covered under the Canada Health Act across a population and over the lifespan. Policy initiatives that ignore individual variability across the lifespan yield inequitable results. For example, age-specific policies that exempt seniors from costs charged to the rest of the population will transfer healthcare resources to healthy low-cost seniors from younger individuals with higher needs.