Thursday, October 14, 2010

Patriotic Speeding Overweight Smokers

In response to my recent economics of human life post, a reader linked a story about measuring human deaths. The big reveal was that smoking (and I suspect other major killers like heart disease and motor vehicle crashes) may actually decrease (or at least not impact) government spending. Because smoking and other major killers shorten lifespan, society is saved the costs of caring for elderly (and Medicare, Social Security). This certainly isn't an encouragement to die early, but if there are no negative spillovers to society, then perhaps government shouldn't intervene (like banning drugs, taxing sodas or limiting fatty foods).

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