I heard an American man talking on World Service about the attention now being paid to judging which health interventions are worthwhile. It may have been with particular reference to Medicaid, but I did not catch all of it
He made the point that helping someone to stop smoking is an EXTREMELY expensive intervention – possibly the most expensive of all. The ex-smoker will live to experience all the health problems of old age & will need all the expensive drugs & treatments
In this country prescriptions have risen by nearly 60 per cent in a decade, to a record 796 million last year. The prescribing bill reached £8.3 billion last year, nearly double the £4.3 billion in 1997.
And nearly two thirds of all prescriptions were for people over the age of 60
The bill does not stop at free prescriptions. As well as pensions, we have free bus passes, winter fuel payments, Senior Railcards, reduced rates for local authority services such as libraries & swimming pools, 10% discounts in Boots ……
Some of us will even live long enough to get a free tv licence
Carry on smoking & do your bit to reduce public expenditure in these straitened times
