I found this to be an extremely interesting point:
>In the short term, less smoking would lead to decreased spending because of reductions in health care spending for those who had smoked.
>In the long run, all of those people living longer would lead to increases in spending in many programs, including health care. The more people who quit smoking, the higher the deficit from health care — barely offset by the revenue from taxing cigarettes.
So yes, if our goal is to “reduce healthcare spending” letting people die younger, faster would indeed do this.
However if our goal is to “improve quality of life for people at the lowest possible cost” we most likely need to invest in preventative care.
I would like to hear more from the authors on their synthesis.
>In the short term, less smoking would lead to decreased spending because of reductions in health care spending for those who had smoked.
>In the long run, all of those people living longer would lead to increases in spending in many programs, including health care. The more people who quit smoking, the higher the deficit from health care — barely offset by the revenue from taxing cigarettes.
So yes, if our goal is to “reduce healthcare spending” letting people die younger, faster would indeed do this.
However if our goal is to “improve quality of life for people at the lowest possible cost” we most likely need to invest in preventative care.
I would like to hear more from the authors on their synthesis.