Health today versus health tomorrow: does Australia really care less about its future health than other countries do?

Economic evaluation provides important evidence on value for money in health care and is routinely used in health technology assessment processes. The relevant costs and benefits of health care that are considered may arise now and/or in the future, and the relative importance placed on costs and benefits in the future is reflected in the discount rate applied to them. In this paper we note that Australia appears to apply one of the highest discount rates in the world to the assessment of future healthcare benefits. At a time when healthcare systems worldwide are calling for a rebalance of effort towards prevention, Australia's discount rate risks pulling resource allocation in precisely the opposite direction, locking in institutional short-sightedness to funding decisions.