Cigarette smoking accounts for 8.7% of total healthcare spend
ATLANTA — Cigarette smoking generates as much as $170 billion in annual healthcare spending in the United States, accounting for 8.7% of the total healthcare spend, according to a new study co-authored by researchers at Georgia State University's School of Public Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and RTI International.
The study found that taxpayers bear 60% of the cost of smoking-attributable diseases through such publicly funded programs as Medicare and Medicaid. Despite declines in the rates of smoking in recent years, the costs on society due to smoking have increased.
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.
Terry Pechacek, a professor of health management and policy at Georgia State, was the senior author of the study, "Annual Healthcare Spending Attributable to Cigarette Smoking (An Update)," which was published Wednesday by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
The analysis, conducted in 2013, used data from the 2006-10 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and 2004-09 National Health Interview Survey.