Poor health habits (drinking, smoking, lack of exercise)
obviously take their toll on individuals and their families. The
costs to society are less obvious but certainly more far-reaching.
This investigation is the first to quantify the financial burden
these detrimental habits place on American taxpayers. Willard
Manning and his colleagues measure the direct costs of poor health
habits (fire damage, motor vehicle accidents, legal fees), as well
as collectively financed costs (medical care, employee sick leave,
group health and life insurance, nursing home care, retirement
pensions, liability insurance). Consider two co-workers covered by
their employer's health plan: both pay the same premium, yet if one
drinks heavily, the other--through their mutual insurance
program--involuntarily funds the resulting health problems.
After laying out their conceptual framework, methods, and
analytical approach, the authors describe precisely how and to what
extent drinking, smoking, and lack of exercise are currently
subsidized, and make recommendations for reducing or reallocating
the expense. They present, for example, a persuasive case for
raising excise taxes on alcohol. The authors correlate their data
to make costs comparable, to avoid double counting, and to
determine the exact costs of each of these poor health habits and
some of their findings are quite surprising.
This unique study will be indispensable to public health policy
specialists and researchers, as well as to health economists.
General
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