Time to make a difference: Economic and fiscal benefits of Preventive Care+

Australia's health system faces a structural affordability challenge.

Health spending now accounts for 16 per cent of Federal Government expenses and has consistently outpaced economic growth, rising from 7.6 per cent of GDP in 2000 to 10.4 per cent in 2023.

Prevention is one of the most direct levers available to moderate this growth, yet Australia allocates just 2.3 per cent of health expenditure to prevention, against a National Preventive Health Strategy target of 5 per cent.

Potentially preventable hospitalisations already cost the health system $7.7 billion a year, with chronic conditions responsible for $3.5 billion of that total.

Compounding the problem, there is no structured health assessment for Australians between the ages of 50 and 75, a 25-year gap that spans the window when many chronic conditions first emerge.

Preventive Care+, proposed by the Australian Self-Care Alliance, addresses this gap directly.

The program combines a comprehensive health assessment for 55–59-year-olds with six health coaching sessions, helping individuals manage their conditions through structured self-care, delaying disease progression and keeping people in milder disease states for longer.

Mandala's analysis, covering four common chronic conditions (Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and osteoarthritis), finds that Preventive Care+ could deliver $233 million in combined health, income and fiscal benefits per cohort over ten years.

Delayed disease progression is projected to save the health system $85 million, against a program cost of $59 million, a net saving of $26 million per cohort.

The benefits extend beyond the health system.

By delaying the onset of chronic disease, participants could remain in the workforce for one to three additional years, generating $159 million in additional income, $19 million in additional superannuation contributions and $29 million in additional tax receipts per cohort over ten years.

These figures represent a conservative lower bound, as the analysis covers only four of the more than 100 conditions captured in the Australian Burden of Disease Study.

Other benefits were not quantified, including improved quality of life and wellbeing, retention of skills and experience, and greater workforce productivity as pressure on informal carers eases.

The case for greater investment in prevention and self-care for health extends beyond Preventive Care+.

Earlier upstream investment across all age groups is projected to further reduce long-term system costs and improve health outcomes.

Read the full report here.