Background of context Priority setting and resource allocation across various healthcare functions are critical issues in health policy and strategic decision making. As health resources are limited while there are so many health challenges to resolve, consumers and payers have to make difficult decisions about expenditure allocation. Objective Our research focus on the (dis)agreement between citizens' preferences and actual public health expenditure across broad healthcare functions, on whether this (dis)agreement is persistent, on whether various demographic factors amplify this (dis)agreement and to derive useful implications for public health policies. Setting and participants Using survey data of 3029 citizens in Greece for the year 2012 and employing logit estimation techniques, we analysed the effect of demographic and other factors in shaping citizens' (dis)agreement with public health expenditure allocation. Results Our results demonstrate the important role of income, family members and residence in shaping citizens' preferences regarding health expenditure priorities in almost all healthcare functions, while other demographic factors such as job, age, gender and marital status do partly associate and play a significant role. Conclusions Government should encourage the citizens' participation in the decision‐making process in order to eliminate the unveiled and significant disagreement between citizens' preferences and actual public health expenditure across all healthcare functions.