Public Health and Prevention

CBO describes the effects and evolution of the opioid crisis in the United States, the factors that have contributed to it, the laws enacted to address it, and the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the crisis.

Preventive medical care includes services that can prevent diseases from occurring and detect diseases before symptoms appear. This report describes how CBO estimates the effects on the federal budget of proposals to expand the use of such services.

Given the high degree of interest in the relationship between people’s health and the federal budget, this post recaps some highlights from CBO’s report titled Raising the Excise Tax on Cigarettes: Effects on Health and the Federal Budget.

CBO has analyzed the impact of a hypothetical increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes to demonstrate the complex links between policies that aim to improve health and effects on the federal budget.