Oh boy, same suspects; another nasty thread!
Have fun children.
The "healthier" will include people take prescription meds for all sorts of age-related illness and breakdowns of bodilly function. Hypertension, diabetes, and increasingly dementia is becoming a larger portion of the long-term costs.
It is indeed imaginable, which is why people (like myself) have thought for so long that getting people to quit smoking is better for society. But at some point, these authors asked the question, "Well, that is the theory, how does it work in the real world?" and what they found was the opposite. In the short term, the smokers cost much more than a healthy person, but the protracted costs of a long life amount to more in the end.
Then again, these are social cost arguments. There is little comfort in knowing that society will pay less when your family member just died of lung cancer.
I am giving up the filthy habit tonight. Talked myself into over this past month. Got my Habitrol patches and a whack of gum.
But the protracted earnings of a long life may be enough to offset the protracted costs of a short life!