There seems to be some 'confusion' about recent health spending. While, Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd told a Q & A audience that the Howard Government 'took a billion dollars out of the public hospital system', Chris Uhlmann, from Insiders, asserted that the Howard Government had slashed spending on public hospitals.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) states that total Health expenditure by the Commonwealth surged from $21.8 billion in 1998-99 to $39.9 billion in 2006-07. Comparable data for the states are from $19.7 billion in 1998-99 to $37.2 billion in 2006-07.

While commonwealth funding of public hospitals swelled from $5.9 billion in 1997-98 to $10.7 billion in 2006-07, state funding of public hospitals increased from $7 billion to $14.8 billion over the same period.

The amount of funding increased in every year more than GDP growth.

Joe Hockey on Insiders said that since public hospitals are a state liability, the states have radically augmented their funding of hospitals. After the introduction of the GST in 2000, this increase is very obvious. In other words, a Commonwealth tax passed onto the states is somewhat responsible for an increase in state funding to hospitals. Now, Commonwealth desires to pull out that money from the states and put it aside for health spending.

Every year billions of dollars from both the Commonwealth and States are allocated to health and hospitals. Commonwealth accounts for more than 50% of the health expenditure.