Lifetime Health Care Costs For the Obese and Smokers Lower Because They're Dead Sooner
This was the impressive conclusion of a study published by the Public Library of Science Medicine. The study was sponsored by the Dutch Ministry of Health Welfare and Sport.
Obese people had the highest health care costs between the ages of 20 and 56. Obese folks and smokers were found to have a higher rate of heart disease than others.
However, the authors found that the obese and those who smoke had lower lifetime health care costs than the healthy because they died sooner.
Makes me think the Dutch Parliament must also have a pork barrel spending problem.
3 comments:
Very interesting. Could you update the post with the DOI for or link to the paper? Thanks!
http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/02/05/study_good_health_costlier_in_long_run/
Then the US should have the lowest healthcare bill in the world!
Wait, that doesn't seem to be the case....
Oh yeah, it is because in the US we do 10x more heroic interventions for these folks, driving the bill WAY UP.
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