Longevity & Anti-Aging: Financial Benefits

Longevity, anti-aging and disease not only benefits us individually, allowing us to live longer, healthier, more vital and vibrant lives, but has tremendous financial value to society as well.

University of Chicago Business School professors Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel used data from insurance company compensation  outlays for accident claims to find the value of a person’s life in monetary terms: $5 million dollars US. Of course a refined scheme would have to consider worker productivity and the loss of it, insurance claims for accidents and deaths, the additional cost of health care which reverberates through the  Medicaid and Medicare systems, from higher taxes to pay for health care for the elderly, private health-care and the cost of life and accident insurance, etc, but you get the idea.

Using this figure they were able to calculate the value of the increase in life expectancy – 6 years – which occurred in the US from 1970-1990 for the total economy – $57 trillion 1992 dollars. Thus, every year we can add to the average  lifespan of the US population saves, or adds to, the economy the princely sum of $2.4 trillion dollars.

It pays, and is a huge economic boost to our economy, if we can reduce the incidence of disease and live longer. A cure for heart disease would add $48 trillion dollars to the economy and a cure for cancer $47 trillion. Considering the amount of money the US is now squandering in its financial debacle, we had better get our health and health care expenses under control, for the sake of the economy if nothing else.

Even a 20% reduction in mortality from heart disease or cancer would add $10 trillion dollars to the economy, about the amount that has been squandered by politicians, warmongers and thieves in the US in just the past few years, and almost the entire GDP of our once great nation.