But is it more expensive than what we're currently doing?
(USA viewpoint)
A person who eats poorly and doesn’t exercise can easily rack up millions of dollars in treatments for heart attacks and strokes. Yet they don’t seem to get anything like the same derision. Why?
I'll point out that people rescued from the brink of death are usually grateful for it, whereas these poor individuals, as noted in the article, often take a swing at their rescuers. I think that pretty much answers the question of whether they cost more than they contribute.
> A person who eats poorly and doesn’t exercise can easily rack up millions of dollars in treatments for heart attacks and strokes. Yet they don’t seem to get anything like the same derision. Why?
What makes you think people don't? Have you never observed someone or even yourself doing something unhealthy and thought glumly "Yep, eating/drinking this is going to put him/her/me one step closer to death by a lifestyle disease. Foolish of him/her/me."
What makes me think people don’t? The fact that you begrudge $50 to save an addict’s life, while your theoretical reaction to someone eating themselves to death is “foolish of him” seems to back that up pretty strongly.
To be frank, and I say this having addicted family members, sometimes it’s rather hard to care about a junkie.
I’m not exactly in the “fuck ‘em” camp, as a society we should have a better answer than leaving them a nuisance, but the idea that we should give up at a certain point is scarcely exotic.