I feel both are just as bad, from a community care stance. Although if you look at it from an economic point of view long term sickness in the young is the one you really want to avoid, that will cost big bucks for years to come. That's from the standpoint of loss of productivity and reliance on benefits/care. To me that's going to be the huge issue for the UK with its NHS system, being entirely taxpayer funded. The US can get away with it due to their system being more user pays (a lot), so there is more burden on the individual rather than the community. Australia being closer to the UK system would want to avoid long term mass disabilities.