Worldwide, tobacco is responsible for 7 million deaths a year. In the United States, nearly 500,000 people die as a result of smoking each year, and approximately 16 million people are sick as a result of tobacco.
But the cost to health and lives are not the only costs that Americans are suffering due to the tobacco industry.
Smoking is incredibly expensive to the individual smoker – as much as $2.3 million over a lifetime in some states including out of pocket costs, healthcare costs, income loss, financial opportunity cost and others.
Surprisingly, smoking is also costly to U.S. citizens at large. The total economic cost of smoking in the United States is more than $300 billion a year! Nearly $170 billion goes to direct medical care for adults and more than $156 billion is spent on lost productivity due to premature death and illness.
A 2014 study found that U.S. taxpayers bear up to 60% of the cost of smoking, due largely to the burden that smoking related diseases place on the Medicare and Medicaid systems.
Researchers found that smoking is responsible for:
- $45 billion in Medicare spending per year,
- $39.9 billion in Medicaid spending per year and
- $23.8 billion in spending for other government-sponsored insurance programs per year
While these numbers are shocking, it can be hard to see how they impact Americans day to day. Professor Tom Glynn broke it down more clearly. “When someone goes into a store and buys a pack of cigarettes, it costs the American taxpayer about $10 every time in lost wages, lost productivity and healthcare.”
ASH’s goal in ending the tobacco epidemic is to save lives. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could save the U.S. tax payers some money too?
Join us in our fight toward a world with zero tobacco deaths.