Economics of Health

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by BigV

For example, they give a very precise sounding number, $417,000, as the health care cost for a thin person who lives longer, but no reference at all to the other side of the ledger of the same person's life. Do they not earn more or longer? Or not? What of the economics of their lives?

Well, they admit that they don't try to measure social or employee-efficiency aspects of the equation, but as for earning longer:

On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years.

So really, all these people are past retirement age anyway, it's just that slow degenerative conditions cost more than swift diseases.