Quote:
Originally posted by sgtclub
I can't recall. I worked on this question in law school for a professor, but that was years ago, so my info may be out of date.
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I don't question that your assertion is right. I just sincerely wanted to know if you could point me to the study. It is an interesting topic to me. I wouldn't be surprised if what you said is correct.
FYI - there is another study I am aware of but it was not a study published in a journal. It was a study done by an agency of the UK government. The agency was interested in learning how much money could be saved if they raised the cigarette tax to discourage use. Well, the study was a very well done study because it looked not just at health care costs, but also the government's expenditures on other elements of its cradle to grave welfare system, including nursing home care and retirement benefits. The study showed that any monies saved in health care costs would be significantly less than the increased spending on nursing home care and retirement benefits. From what I remember, they did not raise the tax at that time and did not publicize the study.
I think subsequently, they did raise the tax, though.
If you understand that the most prevalent cause of death of smokers is cardiovascular, this makes sense. It costs the health care system very little when someone dies suddenly of a heart attack. The stats for first heart attacks are that 1/3 die from their first heart attack.
In those with smoking related lung cancer, for about 1/3 there is no good treatment. There really is nothing to offer other than keeping the person comfortable as they die. When medical science has nothing to offer to treat a disease, it doesn't cost much to treat.
Diseases that are expensive to treat are disease where we do have an effective treatment that doesn't cure the disease, but treats it and allows the person to continue to live but with complications that require more treatements - like diabetes.
