R38:
Well, it so easy to defend that I will do it despite your command.
You are using a cost/benefit analysis claiming that it is cheaper in the long run to have people die of lung cancer than to live and die of years later from something else.
That is something entirely different than what I was claiming, but perhaps I was not clear.
Compare these alternatives to see which is cheaper.
Find the average duration for the treatment of lung cancer. Let's say seven years, at the end of which a person will have died or will be declared a cancer survivor.
Take any seven years of a person's life, find out his expected medical costs, and the consequent cost to society. Those expenses will be lower if he does not have to be treated for lung cancer.
If you have figures that are different, that treating a person for lung cancer is cheaper over a given seven year period than not treating him, bring them forward.
You are making an entirely different claim. You are arguing that If we keep a person from getting lung cancer now, that over the entire span of his life, the extension of life span of 15 years, 30 years, or whatever, that his medical care will then cost society more than if he had died of lung cancer when he was younger.
That has nothing to do what I said, but you must think shifting the argument makes it easier to answer.
In any case, however you twist my words, what you say is still not completely true and to the extent it is true it is irrelevant compared do other values society has that are held more dear than the balance sheet.
If a person does not encounter lung cancer because he has taken simple steps to avoid it, he then will have more years in which he contributes to the economy, working, producing things of of intrinsic value -- work product.
If he is not employed, he can help other people who work by providing child care, house work, etc. Such work also contributes to the GDP. He also will be a taxpayer.
He is adding dollars and cents to the economy that a person who has died cannot. When he is old and needs care, those extra earnings offset the added expense old age brings.
Also, if he does not get lung cancer, he will add intangibles to the benefit of society. He will be adding to the pleasure of other people who love him -- all of us presumably have a circle of friends and family who we would dearly miss if they go too soon from lung cancer.
I can see why intangible contributions may never have occurred to you.
Even seeing a person go through lung cancer and survive, a rather rare event, brings heartache to those around him, depending on the person who is afflicted of course.
That's why we treat all illnesses and correct all life-threatening hazards possible -- life is precious and has value beyond dollars and cents. We have an obligation to each other.
If we follow your line of thinking, that it would be cheaper overall to let people smoke and die young, we can say that about every single life-threatening issue.
It is cheaper to let people die when a Ford Pinto gas tank explodes. It is cheaper to let corporations foul our water and air -- they don't have to put in cleaning fixtures, and people don't live as long.
It would be cheaper to have no workplace safety measures. It would be cheaper to have no fire codes, fire departments and police.
It is cheaper to let children die of diphtheria and polio than to inoculate them -- no money spent on vaccines and no worry about the expense of their care ever. It would be cheaper to let AIDs patients die.
In any case, it should be clear from what I said that I was claiming that current medical costs will be lower if there are fewer people sick with lung cancer.
Do you have figures that show the opposite? That it is cheaper during the average number of treatment years to provide health care to a lung cancer patient than it is to provide care to a person who does not have lung cancer?
Please, show them. These I would like to see.
