Fat people and smokers use less healthcare

[Teggy]

Was listening to the BBC World Report this morning, and they did a story on efforts to attach taxes to high calorie/fat foods around the world. They had two guests on in pro/con roles.

The bit that struck me was something the "con" guest said. He said that over a lifetime, fat people and smokers have some of the lowest healthcare costs - because they die earlier! Dead people can't get dimensia/Alzheimers.

How's that for cynical arguments?

I do wonder if it is true.

Personally, I don't like the idea of taxing regular food, seems against a free society. Educating and offering comparatively priced healthy foods is a better idea.

[stessier]

I do wonder if it is true.

I've heard that a number of times and think I read a CNBC article on it, but I'm having trouble finding it. Going quick (heart attack, stroke, etc) is usually cheaper than wasting away, so I could certainly see it.

[Zarathud]

Personally, I don't like the idea of taxing regular food, seems against a free society. Educating and offering comparatively priced healthy foods is a better idea.

But taxing food means putting the market economics to work, while government education and mandating healthy foods is "big government."

More seriously, it's not the age when you die. It's how quickly you get sick and die. I think the costs rack up from continuing care caused by a chronic health condition, particularly when you need in-home care.

[Crux]

I call bull on that. Treating diabetes over the course of decades is not cheap. Nor is heart surgery, or heart/blood pressure medication. I'd have to see some seriously hard numbers before I believed that to be true.

[Austin]

while government education and mandating healthy foods is "big government."

Need these things be lumped together? Can we have education without the mandates?

[noxiousdog]

I call bull on that. Treating diabetes over the course of decades is not cheap. Nor is heart surgery, or heart/blood pressure medication. I'd have to see some seriously hard numbers before I believed that to be true.

None of those are as expensive as nursing homes.

It all comes back to labor. Once a person needs attentive care on a daily (or hourly) basis, the costs shoot up to the stratosphere. In most cases, you're talking about extended hospital stays as well. My grandfather is going through that now.