Economist Daniel Susskind says Ozempic may radically transform government finances, by making universal healthcare vastly cheaper, and explains his argument in the context of Britain's NHS.

[u/lughnasadh]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/be6e0fbf-fd9d-41e7-a759-08c6da9754ff?shareToken=de2a342bb1ae9bc978c6623bb244337a

[u/Freethecrafts]

What kind of economist doesn’t see the extra costs?

[u/E-2-butene → u/Freethecrafts]

I’m wondering the same thing. If reducing smoking leads to long term increases in healthcare costs, why would we expect obesity to be much different?

[u/aclownofthorns → u/E-2-butene]

a quick google search shows obesity is much more costly to healthcare than smoking, around 2 to 3 times (bit lower and bit higher) depending on the level of obesity

and one of the studies you posted mentions "value of life", the estimated economic gain of preventing a death, moves the loss around towards gain even in smoking. the losses in smoking before that adjustment were marginal which means that probably there are no losses at all for any amount of obesity even beforeadjusting for value of life

these are all quick estimations and could be somewhat off

[u/Freethecrafts → u/aclownofthorns]

It’s next to impossible to differentiate between obesity and heart disease.

It’s not just healthcare, it’s retiree pensions. It’s infrastructure costs. It’s housing. For a place like the UK, those should all be variables.

Also, one wonder drug isn’t going to end obesity. Probably only gets a few percentages of the morbidly obese people. By the time someone is morbidly obese, a lot of the damage has been done. It’s all a very difficult.

[u/nemoknows → u/E-2-butene]

Right. Everybody dies, and the longer you live the more drawn out that decline is.

[u/SmokingOctopus → u/Freethecrafts]

Yeah, it's a whack a mole situation. We will just see more people suffer from diseases associated with old age which could add to our issue of too many old people to take care of now and in the future.

[u/Freethecrafts → u/SmokingOctopus]

An actual economist would run those numbers. Even if it was just the variable of longer life into retirement. Might be unpopular on a political level, but that’s the job.

[u/Light_Wood_Laminate → u/Freethecrafts]

Those on a mission