Adjusting health expenditure for military spending and interest payment: Israel and the OECD countries

Israel Journal of Health Policy Research

Avi Israeli¹  Amir Shmueli¹ 

[1]The Hebrew University–Hadassah School of Public Health, POB 12272, Jerusalem 91120, Israel

关键词: Interest payment;    Military spending;    Israel;    International comparisons;    Health spending;   

Others  :  804929
DOI  :  10.1186/2045-4015-2-5

 received in 2012-06-24, accepted in 2013-01-25,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

Compared to OECD countries, Israel has a remarkably low percentage of GDP and of government expenditure spent on health, which are not reflected in worse national outcomes. Israel is also characterized by a relatively high share of GDP spent on security expenses and payment of public debt.

Objectives

To determine to what extent differences between Israel and the OECD countries in security expenses and payment of the public debt might account for the gaps in the percentage of GDP and of government expenditures spent on health.

Methods

We compare the percentages of GDP and of government expenditures spent on health in the OECD countries with the respective percentages when using primary civilian GDP and government expenditures (i.e., when security expenses and interest payment are deducted). We compared Israel with the OECD average and examined the ranking of the OECD countries under the two measures over time.

Results

While as a percentage of GDP, the national expenditure on health in Israel was well below the average of the OECD countries, as a percentage of primary civilian GDP it was above the average until 2003 and below the average thereafter. When the OECD countries were ranked according to decreasing percent of GDP and of government expenditure spent on health, adjusting for security and debt payment expenditures changed the Israeli rank from 23rd to 17th and from 27th to 25th, respectively.

Conclusions

Adjusting for security expenditures and interest payment, Israel's low spending on health as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of government's spending increases and is closer to the OECD average. Further analysis should explore the effect of additional population and macroeconomic differences on the remaining gaps.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Shmueli and Israeli.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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