Actually, it's not even good policy for elite sociopaths if they want to reduce costs. Fact is, life expectancy is still high... we can keep sick and unhealthy people alive for decades, due to the incredible diversity of drugs and surgical procedures, paid for by insurance or medicare. In that sense this policy has created a HUGE drain on our society.
So, the only psychopaths this policy really benefits are the subset who own or are bribed by Big Pharma, and to a lesser degree the armies of cardiologists and dieticians who service this system. We are living in an age when heart disease is the #1 cause of early death. This and several of the other top causes are all directly related to a high-carb, high-sugar diet and lack of exercise. Almost 50% of American adults are on some medication permanently, and 20% of American children are on meds. It is pure insanity. Everything is an intervention rather than a prevention. Take, for example diabetes. You can get rid of it simply by a temporary crash diet (600 calories a day--preferably fats, proteins and vegetables), regular exercise, and then gradually moving back to regular caloric intake, punctuated by some intermittent fasting. In fact, we are finding that intermittent fasting is probably good for everyone. But there's very little money in this sort of cure, so instead we pump people full of meds and send them home to sit and watch TV or play video games.
I fume about this topic, because it is the overriding irrationality of our age. Mathematically speaking, our bad diet and lack of exercise is more dangerous to us than forgetting to wear seatbelts, drinking and driving, keeping loaded guns laying about, and dancing on our roofs during thunderstorms, yet we go on about these ways like unthinking cattle.