[Tavek]

Oorspronkelijk geplaatst door TomB

Minder gezondheidskosten is een fabeltje. Een roker die ten onder gaat aan kanker weegt niet op tegen geriatrische bijstand voor een gezond oudje, dat bovendien nog eens vele jaren langer pensioen trekt. De roker betaalt meer dan dat hij kost.

Daar wil ik graag eens onderzoek naar zien. Een gezondere bevolking leidt tot hogere economische productiviteit.

Cigarettes Cost U.S. $7 Per Pack Sold, Study Says

Published: April 12, 2002

Each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity, the government said today.

The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the nation's total cost of smoking at $3,391 a year for every smoker, or $157.7 billion. Health experts had previously estimated the cost at $96 billion a year.

Americans buy about 22 billion packs of cigarettes annually. The agency's study is the first to establish a cost to the nation of each pack smoked.

The agency estimated the nation's medical costs related to smoking at $3.45 per pack, and said job productivity lost because of premature death from smoking amounted to $3.73 per pack, for a total of $7.18.

''There's a big difference in the cost to society and what society is getting back in tax,'' said Dr. Terry Pechacek, the associate director of the agency's office of smoking and health. ''We believe society is bearing a burden for the individual behavioral choices of the smokers.''

The new study was conducted from 1995 to 1999. The average cost of a pack of 20 cigarettes was $2.92 in 1999, the study said, but it gave no indication of how much of that amount went for taxes.

The agency said it analyzed expenses, both personal and for the health care industry, and used national medical surveys to calculate the costs to the nation.

The agency also reported that smoking results in about 440,000 deaths a year in the United States, up from the government's previous figure of 430,000, estimated in the early 1990's. The lost lives are ''a significant public health tragedy,'' said Dr. David Fleming, the agency's acting director.

A spokesman for tobacco giant Brown & Williamson objected that the study presents the figures in a vacuum, without comparing smoking to the financial burdens other people place on society, nonsmokers with diabetes, for example.

bron: NY Times

De cijfers zijn hoogst waarschijnlijk irrelevant, maar kwalitatief mag dit artiekel toch worden geinterpreteerd in de zin dat roken meer kost dan het opbrengt in de VS. In Europa zal het niet veel schelen, maar ik vrees dat de gemeenschap nog meer moet betalen aangezien wij veel meer overheidsgeld in gezondheidszorg stoppen ipv prive geld.