Health care reform is tricky. On the one hand, providing access to affordable health care is of paramount importance. But spending on health care is putting enormous pressure on public purses all over the world, and it’s only getting worse. How can we fix this? How can governments keep their health care promises to citizens without busting the budget?
A paper by the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department tries to help with these choices, presenting public health spending projections for fifty advanced and emerging countries, and posing reform options.