Industry Figure Tom Chappell

From the Netherlands, a study showing that fat people (and smokers!) spend less on health care, and cost less to treat, even for systems with socialized medicine.

And can you guess why?

Oh, it’s because they die way sooner. Those pesky thin non-smokers just live and live; they’re very annoying.

The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.

On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years.

The point of the study being to debunk the myth that reducing obesity will reduce national health care costs: “We are not recommending that governments stop trying to prevent obesity, but they should do it for the right reasons.”

Read an article about the study, from the Associated Press.
“Fat people cheaper to treat, study says”

Read the study itself, in the Public Library of Science.
“Lifetime Medical Costs of Obesity: Prevention No Cure for Increasing Health Expenditure”

“They’re cheaper! Isn’t that splendid? I think that’s splendid!”