Perspective: If we want to improve global health, we need to tax the things that are killing us
Monday, January 22, 2018
The world is going through a huge health transition, where the problems of the 6 billion people who live in emerging markets are increasingly the problems of the 1 billion people who live in rich countries. For the first time in history, more people suffer from eating too many calories than too few. Improving global health is no longer primarily about combating infectious diseases.
Today, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and I announced the Task Force on Fiscal Policy for Health. We are bringing together fiscal-policy, development and health leaders from around the globe, including ministers of finance, to address the enormous and growing health and economic burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The hope is to identify underused fiscal-policy tools to lighten that burden.
Given the human and economic toll, the prevention of NCDs — cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease and diabetes — should be of great interest to us all.
Photo courtesy of Alosh Bennett.
Source: Washington Post (link opens in a new window)
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