Incentivizing Patients to Live Healthy Lives

Most people know what comprises a healthy lifestyle, but few actually exercise, follow a healthy diet with low salt, fat, sugar, and avoid smoking and alcohol intake. It could be argued that society should incentivize prevention programs which lead to a healthy lifestyle instead of paying afterwards for the costly treatment of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and other preventable chronic diseases. The German experience shows that these programs might even work – however, they might work best for already healthy people. It’s still not clear, how prevention programs should be designed to initiate lasting behavior change in groups, which are deprived. It should be questioned whether it’s more cost-effective to simply raise taxes on unhealthy diet or pleasures.