Smokers' responsibility for smoking-related healthcare costs

¶ … healthcare costs for smokers are significantly higher than their non-smoking counterparts, and this paper reviews the relevant literature to measure the degree, if any, to which smokers are currently paying their own health care costs. An analysis of the costs that are associated with the second-hand smoke generated by smokers to identify additional costs is followed by a summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Smokers Should Pay for Their Own Health Care Costs Incurred from Smoking-Related Diseases

Despite a growing number of aggressive campaigns to completely eradicate the habit in recent years, many Americans continue to smoke tobacco and incur a number of smoking-related healthcare problems as a result. In fact, the costs that are associated with caring for smokers' healthcare needs far exceed those of their nonsmoking counterparts, but some analysts argue that smokers are already paying their own share of health care costs through hefty excise taxes and that the federal government actually makes money off smokers. These arguments, though, ignore the other costs created by smokers through second-hand smoke which can be harmful and even deadly. Calculating the costs of human life is a subjective enterprise, of course, but it is possible to calculate with some degree of accuracy that additional health care costs incurred from smoking-related diseases to determine if smokers are actually paying their own way. To this end, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to determine the extent to which smokers are currently paying their own health care costs, followed by an analysis of the costs that are associated with the second-hand smoke generated by smokers to identify additional costs. Finally, a summary of the research and the outcome of the analysis are presented in the conclusion.

Current Funding Mechanisms for Smoker Health Care

According to Daynard and Barr (1999), since the mid-20th century, the big tobacco companies have engaged in a veritable conspiracy to hide the real truth about the dangers of smoking in ways that have helped recruit new generations of smokers. In fact, despite the growing body of evidence that smoking causes a wide array of healthcare problems and further exacerbates numerous others, a new group of smokers emerges and the costs that are associated with treating them continue to escalate (Sunstein, 2004). Indeed, each year, more than one million people in the United States develop smoking-related illnesses and more than 400,000 eventually die from these healthcare problems (Daynard & Barr, 1999).

Not surprisingly, then, many observers have called for American smokers to pay more of their share of the staggering healthcare costs they incur each year, but there are some factors involved that affect this argument in fundamental ways. For example, because there is so much money involved, there have been serious efforts in recent years to calculate just how much the federal government spends on the extra healthcare costs that are associated with smoking tobacco and it turns out that smokers are a gold mine for the government. The results of an early federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) study showed that based on the significant excise taxes that are paid by smokers when they purchase tobacco products, smokers actually pay more than the costs of the individual health care (Daynard & Barr, 1999). Moreover, some authorities even argue that the manner in which Medicaid payments are subsidized by smokers even violates the Social Security Act by forcing them to pay what amounts to extra premiums into the federal health care system through heavy excise taxes on tobacco (Traylor, 2010). The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement reached between most of the states and the federal government concerning Medicaid reimbursements for smoking-related diseases. Nevertheless, among the several provisions of the Master Settlement Agreement was the stipulation that the defendant tobacco companies had the responsibility to cover the costs associated with treating tobacco-related diseases that were assumed to be caused by the use of their products (Traylor, 2010).

The foregoing facts make arguments in support of requiring smokers to pay even more appear spurious on their face, but there is more involved in the analysis than first meets the eye and these issues are discussed further below with respect to the second-hand smoke generated by smokers.

Conclusion

The research showed that although efforts by tobacco companies to conceal the harmful effects of their products have been brought to light and efforts to reduce smoking have been increasingly successful, many Americans continue to smoke tobacco and hundreds of thousands of new smokers join them each year. The research also showed that although smokers pay for their health care costs through heavy excise taxes, they are also inflicting a heavy burden on innocent nonsmokers, including young children, who are forced to breathe these noxious fumes. Because the costs that are associated with treating second-hand smoke remain difficult to calculate, it is reasonable to conclude that smokers are not in fact paying their fair share despite what many authorities argue to the contrary. In the final analysis, additional research is needed to quantify these additional costs in order to fairly assess what smokers should be paying to offset the costs of their personal behavior.