Not particularly, no. Only those covered by state medicare (at least before this universal healthcare crap) would have detracted from the system, and even then only minimally. The cost is more likely than not in preventative ad campaigns, not in the healthcare itself, as this is covered by insurance in most cases, or for the other sixth hardly at all.
52 million Americans are not covered by insurance, and rely on the government for healthcare.
Time, money and energy spent treating patients with health conditions that are exacerbated by their poor diets affects the efficiency, availability and cost of medical care. Medical News Today argues that the illnesses resulting from obesity due to poor dieting often force people to take days off from work, stop working, or go on disability. Decreased productivity negatively affects the economy and the standard of living. When individuals use sick time and do not go to work, the level of productivity of the workforce decreases and business revenue decreases.
The medical care costs of obesity in the United States are staggering. In 2008 dollars, these costs totaled about $147 billion according to Health Affairs. The government doesn't exactly care if you get diabetes or are obese; it cares when it affects society as a whole.
Mexico is a tragic example. Not too long ago, diabetes was rarely seen in Mexico, with the explosion of fast food restaurant chains, the Mexican health system is struggling. It issued a statement in 2009:
âObesity-related illnesses are now so widespread that they are beginning to place a severe strain on the health system: the treatment of type 2 diabetes alone consumes more than one-third of the entire social security budget. Estimates suggest that within five years it will account for two-thirds.â
The Bottom line is, we care not about social marginal benefits and costs of our actions, we care only about our own private marginal benefits and costs. This leads to deadweight loss for society, and allocative inefficiency.
As for drugs, I thought you were mentioning more than just pot, but all kinds of drugs. Yes, marijuana doesn't kill. But the government doesn't care whether you died from pot smoking, it cares about the costs to society.
One major justification for legalization remains tempting: the money. Unfortunately, however, the financial costs of marijuana legalization would never outweigh its benefits. Yes, the marijuana market seems like an attractive target for taxation -- Abt Associates, a research firm, estimates that the industry is worth roughly $10 billion a year -- and California could certainly use a chunk of that cash to offset its budget woes in the current economic climate.
What is rarely discussed, however, is that the likely increase in marijuana prevalence resulting from legalization would probably increase the already high costs of marijuana use in society. Accidents would increase, healthcare costs would rise and productivity would suffer. Legal alcohol serves as a good example: The $8 billion in tax revenue generated from that widely used drug does little to offset the nearly $200 billion in social costs attributed to its use.
