Do smokers pay for their healthcare?

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This is a common urban statistic - "Oh, smokers pay for their healthcare 10 times over through tax" - usually trotted out by defiant smokers. I wanted to check the validity of this statement, but am finiding little on google.

Anyone know anything?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 09:59 (twenty-one years ago)

But do smokers really cost more in healthcare anyway? They statistically die younger, so there are extra years of old-age healthcare they won't need.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:09 (twenty-one years ago)

There's no way of knowing exactly how much smoking-related diseases cost the NHS but anti-smoking groups estimate between £1.5 billion and £1.7 billion pa. In 2001 tobacco taxes brought in £10.5 billion for the Treasury.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:16 (twenty-one years ago)

But if that £1.5-1.7 billion figure is simply the cost of treating tobacco-related disease, then it's meaningless. You'd have to compare the lifelong cost of healthcare for a sample group of smokers against that of a sample group of non-smokers and then divide the difference by the average lifespan to get a proper p.a. figure.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:23 (twenty-one years ago)

My point being that a smoker may die of cancer at 65, but if he hadn't been a smoker, he may have lived for a further ten years, continuing to receive NHS treatment for his various age-related ailments, and then ultimately died of something just as expensive as lung cancer to treat.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah what gets me about the cost of treating dying smokers is that people die of horrible diseases anyway, only the fact they don't smoke just means it's 10 years later. They seem to be suggesting that people who don't smoke just fall dead happily on their feet one day.

― Steve.n. (sjkirk), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:29 (twenty-one years ago)

That said, lung cancer is a particularly nasty way to go by all accounts.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Most of my dad's friends who died of smoking-related illnesses died of either heart disease or (long & drawn out) emphesyma (sp?) none died of lung cancer. Emphesyma is really, really horrible.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:42 (twenty-one years ago)

All that's true.

xpost

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 10:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Fuck off, twat!

― black anus, Tuesday, 16 November 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

In those religions where suicide is a sin, do smokers go to hell?

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 14:25 (twenty-one years ago)

haha and in those religions where cannibalism is a sin, would you go to hell if you ingested some human tissues through kissing?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 14:31 (twenty-one years ago)

When I was 11 I was told by a rabbi that if you cut your lip you must spit out the blood cos it's not kosher.

― beanz (beanz), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 15:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Silly Rabbi. uh, spits are for kids.

― dave225 (Dave225), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 15:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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