Lifespan

You may think my grumble yesterday was silly. Although all people must die, cancer screening of that kind could certainly prolong our life span.

For a similar reason, there is a continuous effort to promote healthy diet – both in Hong Kong and many other (affluent) countries. Why, most of the modern diseases root from too rich a diet. Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, colon cancer … you name it. We can live longer and prevent major diseases – thereby reducing the burden on the health care system.

This argument is no doubt delusion of the worst kind. Any one who lives longer – however healthy he appears to be – would of course put burden on the system. For the society as a whole, increasing the life span from 70 to 80 adds nothing to the productivity. If anything, the overall productivity decreases because some extra (human and environmental) resources are drained to take care of the old people.

Oh, no, I am not against old people. (I am one very soon, if not now already.) From an individual point of view, it is fantastic to have another 10 years to live – provided that the quality of life is reasonable. What I am getting at is: when it comes to health care, a responsible government should not promote programs that prolong life span in general, and there is an obvious conflict of interest between individuals and the government.

Do you still believe in any health financing system advocated by the officials ?