proportionate increment in the sums dedicated to education? In order to answer such questions, we
need what the health economist Victor Fuchs has called a holistic view of well-being, one that is
aware of the need for tradeoffs between different aspects of well-being.194 The comparison between
figures 3 and 4 show, for instance, that whereas there is a relatively strong correlation between the
growth of a country's GDP and spending on healthcare (from both private and public sources), the
gains in terms of increased life expectancy reach a plateau beyond approximately 3000 USD / person /
year (see figure 4). In other terms, beyond that level, it makes less sense to invest more in healthcare,
since the benefits (at least as assessed in the number of lives saved) will be minimal compared to the
additional resources absorbed:
Figure 3. The correlation between wealth and health expenditure (2009). Source: WHO factsheet No.
319: Spending on Health: A global overview (April 2012)
Figure 4. Correlation between expenditure on health and outcomes (2009). Source: WHO factsheet
No. 319: Spending on Health: A global overview (April 2012)
If resources were infinite and if there were no tradeoffs beetween different dimensions of well-being
(and the corresponding rights of the Covenant), it would perhaps be understandable to set fix
measures, so that each increase in a country's wealth should lead automatically to a commensurate
194
Victor R. Fuchs, "The financial problems of the elderly: A holistic view", in Stuart H. Altman and David I. Shactman
(Eds), Policies for an aging society (Baltimore: John Hopkins Univ. Press, 2003): 378-390.
41
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