This Briefing Note looks at the potential for the introduction of a 'fat tax' into the UK in an effort to reduce the growing prevalence of obesity in Britain. This Briefing Note looks at trends in UK obesity and examines evidence on eating habits and exercise in order to see whether trends here can account for what we see happening to obesity. We go on to review some of the key economic reasons behind why we might be concerned about obesity and why we might consider there to be a case for government intervention. We also discuss how food is currently taxed and the various ways in which a 'fat tax' might be introduced, looking at particular issues the government might need to address should it wish to introduce one. We finish by presenting some simple analysis of a hypothetical 'fat tax' in terms of how it might impact differently on the rich and the poor.
We produce projections of state and private long-term care expenditure and analyse the distributional impact of state-financed care, through innovative linking of macro- and micro-simulation models.
Many health-care systems allocate funding according to measures of need. The utilisation approach for measuring need rests on the assumptions that use of health care is determined by demand and supply and that need is an important element of demand.
The paper presents two taxonomies for classifying global and transnational health-promoting activities according to three parameters of publicness -non-rivalry of benefits, non-excludability of non-payers and the aggregation technologies.
Since the November 2001 Pre-Budget Report, there has been much speculation surrounding how much the UK spends on health and how much more it would need to spend in order to reach the average level of spending seen across European Union countries. An aspiration to increase UK health spending to the average European level was first made by the Prime Minister in January 2000. In addition, the Labour Party manifesto states that 'over time we will bring UK health spending up to the EU average'. More recently, the Prime Minister has confirmed that he would like to see UK health spending reach the European average by 2005. This short note compares the level of health spending in the UK with that overseas and discusses how much more the UK is likely to need to spend on health if it is to meet the Prime Minister's stated target.
The private health care sector forms a relatively small part of the system of health care in this country, but its importance has grown in recent decades.
This commentary examines the role of both the public and private sectors in delivering healthcare in the UK. How does the UK compare with other countries? What is the role of private finance in the delivery of healthcare? What variations in NHS quality are seen across the UK? How much additional pressure is there likely to be on the NHS budget in future as a result of an ageing population?
