Sustainability of public finances: inclusion of unrelated medical cost only part of the story

Excerpt

We read with interest the paper by van Baal et al. establishing the case for including unrelated healthcare costs in economic evaluations to inform decisions on resource allocation in health [1]. The approach proposed by van Baal and colleagues recognizes the externalities of improving health status and the likelihood of ongoing health costs that can arise in relation to allocating decisions. We broadly agree with the premise proposed by the authors, however, we suggest that if we recognize that treating one medical condition gives rise to future externalities and thus the need for healthcare related transfers, we question why stopping at the inclusion of unrelated healthcare costs to economic evaluations and why not consider a broader analytic perspective that includes a range of public costs and benefits attributed to changes in morbidity or mortality that can be attributable to a new intervention or allocation decision. …