Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel write,
From 1970 to 2000 gains in life expectancy added about $3.2 trillion per year to national wealth, with half of these gains due to progress against heart disease alone. Looking ahead, we estimate that even modest progress against major diseases would be extremely valuable. For example, a permanent 1 percent reduction in mortality from cancer has a present value to current and future generations of Americans of nearly $500 billion, while a cure (if one is feasible) would be worth about $50 trillion.
UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Dennis for finding a link to the paper.
READER COMMENTS
Dennis
Jun 15 2005 at 11:51am
I guess this is the paper.
spencer
Jun 16 2005 at 10:53am
Questions, here and elsewhere I see strategies to deal with the problem of an expensive medical care that would increase the costs of healthcare — for example requiring individuals to pay health insurance with after tax dollars.
Doesn’t this costs-benefit analysis imply that public subsidies for healthcare — such as paying for it with pretax dollars– really a positive thing and we are better off because of the subsidy.
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