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Doesn't everyone die? If so, isn't the question what diseases take the longest time to cause death, and thus require the most medical expenditure? Wouldn't me
by awt 17y ago
Doesn't everyone die? If so, isn't the question what diseases take the longest time to cause death, and thus require the most medical expenditure? Wouldn't medical expenses be lower if everyone died of a heart attack at 55? That would certainly be cheaper than living till 70 and treating cancer, bone loss issues, bladder issues, and cholesterol issues over a period of several years.
- dasil003 17y agoIf so, isn't the question what diseases take the longest time to cause death, and thus require the most medical expenditure Not exactly. You're missing two variables. The rate of infection in the population as a whole, and the rate of expenditure to treat the disease.
- hughprime 17y agoHow so? The argument is that eventually everybody dies of something, so avoiding one fatal disease only shifts your death to another disease at some point in the future. I really think it's quite likely that fat people, on average, cost less in health care over their lives than thin people. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but every person who dies suddenly of a heart attack saves an awful lot of money by not dying of cancer, or worse still some degenerative disease.
- dasil003 17y agoNothing wrong with the basic gist, but read closely the statement I quoted. Just because something takes a long time to kill you doesn't mean its treatment is expensive. Similarly, just because something is expensive to treat doesn't mean enough people have it to make it worth targetting from an overall cost perspective. That's all I was saying.
- eru 17y agoAnd if you get less deaths per person-years, you might also save money (per person-year).
- mhb 17y agoDiabetes - blindness, circulation problems, infections, amputations. It's not at all clear that health care for fat people would be less than for thin people.
- anigbrowl 17y agoWell, when a lot of people are obese hospitals need to be able to accommodate them even before they die. Consider the cost of beds, wheelchairs, examination and operating tables, and so on. All that equipment has to be reliable for intensive long-term use; if patient's hospital bed collapses underneath them they would sue and almost certainly win. Now, bearing in mind that this basic-but-necessary equipment is not cheap to start with, making sure that it can handle the weight of an obese person gets quite pricey.