STATE LEADS IN SMOKING COSTS

UCSF study finds $9 billion spent a year on payments for
health-related problems

SAN FRANCISCO -- It costs almost $73 billion a year to treat U.S.
smokers for medical problems caused by cigarettes, and California
spends the most of any state, nearly $9 billion a year, according to a
new study by the University of California-San Francisco.

Smokers cost the nation 11.8 percent of the $614 billion spent on
health care in 1993, according to the study, published Wednesday in
Public Health Reports.

In California, researchers found, when 18 percent of adults in the
state smoked in 1993, health-related costs reached nearly $9 billion.
Medicaid payments alone were $1.7 billion in the state.

New York followed California with $6.6 billion in smoking-related
health care costs, and sparsely populated Wyoming spent the least
overall, with $80 million that year.

Everyone paid something, through tax-dollar supported Medicare,
Medicaid and Veterans' Administration programs, or payments to private
insurers and out-of-pocket expenses by patients themselves.

``The only way we can prevent this kind of expense is to develop a
smoke-free society,'' said Dorothy Rice, an author of the report and
professor emeritus at UCSF.

Rice and other UC economists crunched numbers in a huge federal
database to compile all smoking-related payments made in 1993 by
Medicaid as well as Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Affairs, military,
private health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses by
individuals.

``I am not surprised by these costs,'' said Leonard Miller, a
University of California-Berkeley professor and co-author of the
report. ``You expect a figure of this magnitude for the impact of
smoking on health care when you consider that one in five deaths per
year is due to cigarette use.''

Most of the state lawsuits against tobacco companies have sought
reimbursement only for the state's share of the Medicaid program
costs, although Minnesota also wants to recover Blue Cross/Blue Shield
money, and some other states want Big Tobacco to pay insurance costs
for state employees, Rice noted.

The $1.8 trillion in smoking-related health-care costs over 25 years
calculated by the UC researchers dwarfs a proposed settlement with big
tobacco producers of $368.5 billion discussed at one time by Congress.
The settlement is no longer being considered.

A tobacco industry spokesman would not comment specifically on the UC
report, but was skeptical of financial figures touted by industry critics.

``Usually, if someone is looking at the industry from a critical
standpoint, the price tag keeps going up and up,'' said spokesman
Scott Williams.

1997 - 1998 Mercury Center.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady