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Re:Ask HN: Does increasing our life expectancy save or cost ... by wpietri on Saturday February 17, 2018 @01:14PM (#16401855)
Looking at pure "life expectancy" from interventions is a bad frame for this question; you can't answer it effectively. You have to look for other frames. Consider, for example, the QALY: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality-adjusted_life_year
Re:Ask HN: Does increasing our life expectancy save or cost ... by alasdair_ on Saturday February 17, 2018 @01:40PM (#16401988)
Is there a definition of "perfect health" in the QALY framework? One year of life in twenty year old body is probably better than in one that is sixty, for example.

I ask because at some point we could be asked to consider treatments that could take the "perfect health" score above 1.0. I'd argue that people who do potentially dangerous things like taking steroids already do something like this, valuing a "1.1" year of health now over a potential number of "0.5" years later.