This Times article was interesting, "Preventive Care Saves Money? Sorry, It’s Too Good to Be True: Contrary to conventional wisdom, it tends to cost money, but it improves quality of life at a very reasonable price."
I like this part:
Does spending on prevention save the country money over all?
A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the answer is no. The budget office modeled how a policy to reduce smoking through higher cigarette taxes might affect federal spending. It found that such a tax would cause many people to quit smoking — the desired result. 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.
Maybe I should take up drinking again also.
Bill
