The TLDR is: smoking and obesity cause you to die sooner with less total medical costs[1]. This is great for things like social security since you can pay in o

The TLDR is: smoking and obesity cause you to die sooner with less total medical costs[1]. This is great for things like social security since you can pay in over your entire life but never collect. The story I remember hearing (and couldn't find a specific citation) was that anti-smoking groups made up a bunch of big numbers about smokers' high medical costs to scaremonger. To fight back Phillip-Morris did a study and legitimately found that smokers died sooner and total costs were lower. Unfortunately, that's not something you really want to publicize, so anti-smoking people can keep making up scary numbers and cigarette companies can't really fight back. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.9748884.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05iht-obese.1.97488...