Posted by Michael Wonder on 18 Jun 2020
Harnessing the power of health taxes
18 June 2020 - Health taxes are a cost effective opportunity for progress in public health.
The group of health services a government chooses to provide is known as a health benefits package. Current discussions on such packages are centred on curative health services but can and should do more for prevention. Given budgetary constraints, a compromise must be reached between investing in curative and preventive health interventions.
Cost effectiveness is central to decisions that seek to negotiate this. Its increasing importance to governments, keen to make smart investments in health, is reflected in the global proliferation of health technology assessment—an evidence based approach to evaluating the costs, benefits, and wider effects of health technologies.
