Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerco
Actually, I bet your right. I t would be interesting to see that breakdown actually made.
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Here's a study on the "costs" of smoking:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/337/15/1052
Quote:
Results
Health care costs for smokers at a given age are as much as 40 percent higher than those for nonsmokers, but in a population in which no one smoked the costs would be 7 percent higher among men and 4 percent higher among women than the costs in the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers. If all smokers quit, health care costs would be lower at first, but after 15 years they would become higher than at present. In the long term, complete smoking cessation would produce a net increase in health care costs, but it could still be seen as economically favorable under reasonable assumptions of discount rate and evaluation period.
Conclusions
If people stopped smoking, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs.
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Keep in mind that this study only looks at health care costs. It leaves out things like tax income, money saved on pensions, etc.
Being healthy leads to direct savings in health care, but it also leads to living longer, which drives up costs dramatically in the long run.
Economically speaking, it would be cheapest if people died around age 65.