>Namely, we as a society expend a lot of resources on prolonging our lives (in the form of health care costs). We're probably about as far as we can go on life expectancy using cheap/preventative methods like antibiotics and diet/lifestyle changes.
Quite the opposite in the US and Europe, actually: most health-care money is spent in the last few months of life, when disease is severe and medical care is intensive. Much of this could be avoided, to a benefit in both currency and quality-years-of-life, if we employed a lot more preventative and lifestyle-focused medical interventions rather than racing desperately to save someone with heart problems at 63 or a stroke at 88 that could have been prevented by jogging more at 24.
Japan is an examine of where this approach has been tried and succeeded, with the result that they have one of the longest expected lifespans in the world.
Quite the opposite in the US and Europe, actually: most health-care money is spent in the last few months of life, when disease is severe and medical care is intensive. Much of this could be avoided, to a benefit in both currency and quality-years-of-life, if we employed a lot more preventative and lifestyle-focused medical interventions rather than racing desperately to save someone with heart problems at 63 or a stroke at 88 that could have been prevented by jogging more at 24.
Japan is an examine of where this approach has been tried and succeeded, with the result that they have one of the longest expected lifespans in the world.