CANBERRA: Health has become a $164 billion drag on the economy in the past year alone, dwarfing the potential benefits from the Turnbull government’s proposed company tax cuts.
For the first time, the cost to the Australian economy of obesity and mental health propelled the total cost of declining health outcomes to $40 billion per quarter, according to the latest Lateral Economics wellbeing index commissioned by Fairfax Media.
Treasurer Scott Morrison’s $65 billion company tax cuts, which remain trapped in the Senate, would provide an annual boost of $20 billion to the economy by 2026, modelling by former Treasury official Chris Richardson at Deloitte Access Economics shows.
