Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

If only it were that simple. Smoking doesn't always kill you, but it can give you long-term illness. Now that is a cost to the health-care system. A non-smoking, health-oriented old person is less expensive than a chain-smoking, health-indifferent old person.

I haven't seen the data, but I wouldn't be surprised if smoking and poor dietary habits cause more burden to the health-care system even if these people have a shorter life span.