The greatest happiness of the greatest number? Policy actors' perspectives on the limits of economic evaluation as a tool for informing health care coverage decisions in Thailand

This paper presents qualitative findings from an assessment of the acceptability of using economic evaluation among policy actors in Thailand. Using cost-utility data from two economic analyses a hypothetical case scenario was created in which policy actors had to choose between two competing interventions to include in a public health benefit package. The two competing interventions, laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) for gallbladder disease...