In casual conversations, I’ve raised the point that maybe they do not, which seems grounded in common sense. People always argue with me, and I’ve never considered it important enough to worry about. Now that Obamacare has put us all in the same economic pool, however, it’s worth some long, hard, number crunching.
According to Tim Worstall, self-destructive lifestyles save society money:
It’s a common enough argument around the world at the moment, that various unhealthy behaviours increase the costs to health care systems. Thus those unhealthy behaviours should be taxed more heavily so as to pay for the costs to those health care systems. The only problem with the argument is that it is entirely gibbering nonsense, unhealthy behaviours reduce costs to health care systems: if we are to accept the initial logic then we should subsidise them, not tax them.
Worstall cites a study which makes a tantalizing conclusion:
Because of differences in life expectancy, however, lifetime health expenditure was highest among healthy-living people and lowest for smokers.
Why aren’t more economists crunching these numbers? If unhealthy lifestyles actually save money, and if saving money is the whole point, then what’s with all the screaming about how much these bad self-indulgent people are “costing us”?
Comments
11 responses to “Do smokers and fatties in fact cost “us” more?”
Partly it sounds reasonable to anyone who hasn’t run the numbers, and partly it’s the usual puritan crusade against anything pleasurable. God sent us here to suffer…
If we ban motorcycle helmets there will be more transplant organs for everyone else.
For example, they are going after cigars and cigar smokers. Cigars do not cause lung cancer, cigar smokers don’t inhale.
Hardly any cancers have ever been linked to cigar smoking, possibly a very slight increase in lip and mouth cancers, and that among smokers who consumed more than 5 a day.
It always comes down to-
Who has some money
Make a “we care” cover story and get it
It also saves money by shortening or eliminating the use of social security and medicare monies.
The unhealthy consume their end-of-life medical services earlier than the healthy ordinarily do. But make no mistake, the clean living senior citizens consume lots of end-of-life medical services too.
And there’s an underlying assumption in all this in that we are morally obligated to keep ourselves healthy so as to live as long as possible. Gosh we ate a pushy society.
The unhealthy consume their end-of-life medical services earlier than the healthy ordinarily do. But make no mistake, the clean living senior citizens consume lots of end-of-life medical services too.
And there’s an underlying assumption in all this in that we are morally obligated to keep ourselves healthy so as to live as long as possible. Good health is the be all and end all of life.
It’s the end of life expenses that are expensive, compared to the rest of lifetime expense. It almost doesn’t matter how long you live up to the end of life. From an extreme free market, libertarian point of view that would mean you live until you run out of money. OTOH in a socialized system you live until they decide you aren’t worth keeping alive anymore. see “euthanasia”
Either way you die.
“Comrade, the People’s Number 7 Fertilizer Complex has posthumous utility of you”
Naah,
Soylent Green Requires Less Processing!
And the initials SGRLP has a certain rapping rhythm to it.
My father was a lifelong smoker, until at age 58 his physician informed him that due to his emphysema, he HAD to quit smoking. Quit he did. Previously, my father said he lacked the willpower to quit smoking.
My father died 9 years later at age 67 of lung cancer, resulting in a much cheaper taxpayer cost had he never smoked and like his parents, lived to age 80. Or like his grandfather who lived to 89.
IIRC, the final 6 weeks of his life, spent in a top-notch teaching hospital in the Boston area, cost ~$45,000 three decades ago. How much would that be today? I suspect $300,000-$500,000, with the same result.
This guy:
https://www.amazon.com/Eat-Drink-Be-Merry-Americas/dp/0061096970/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1471816246&sr=8-4&keywords=eat+drink+and+be+merry
Claims that, for most relatively normal people, if one stops smoking, drinking, and exercises, loses weight and so on it will definitely add to one’s lifespan. By about three months.
The large increases are at the extremes, morbidly obese chain smokers and such.