[tschwimmer]

Many studies actually show that smokers are cheaper to care for over their lifetimes, likely because they die earlier. This study[0] shows a +7% for men/+4% for women increase in healthcare costs if all people stopped smoking. I'm too lazy to vet the epistemological quality of this study, but it seems like there are a bunch of these much along the same lines. One thing these studies seem to neglect is total value lost associated with smoking, instead focusing costs alone. By folding in some QALY-like model, you could come up with the overall impact of smoking on society in quantitative terms.

[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9321534/

[glimshe]

This number doesn't take into consideration the contributions of these people to society, which could outweigh their additional healthcare cost and make them an actual net positive to the economy (putting aside moral questions about calculating whether people should live or die based on their net value).

[flappyeagle]

Why does this matter? It’s definitionally the least productive years of someone’s life outside of childhood.

[peapicker]

A nearly 80 yr old man I know has a nearly 200k per year pension. Every five years he lives adds 1 million to the economy.

[CogitoCogito]

If by “add 1 million to the economy”, you mean the local economy where the 80 year old lives, then sure I guess. But in general that’s just money moving around.

[qwytw]

How does that work? I mean technically he takes 200k from the economy without producing anything in return. In very basic terms the government printing an extra 200k adds about as much value (assuming he's not actively investing and not doing anything else).

[matthewdgreen]

If he was “actively investing” would that change the situation?

[qwytw]

Theoretically to some extent it would depending on how he allocated his investments (it could also be the opposite).

[glimshe]

Many cancers triggered by smoking hit during late working years.

[qwytw]

From a purely utilitarian/dystopian/evil/etc. point of view: aren't most people suffering much older on average?

e.g. in the median age at diagnosis is ~71. Most people at that age have very low productivity live on a pension/from savings/other passive income and economically probably cost more to the society than they contribute.

[rcme]

Smokers also pay more taxes over their lifetime so they contribute more to society in addition to costing less at the end of their life.