Smoking Cessation and Health Care Costs
By the year 2030 it is believed that smoking is going to kill one out of every six adults. This does not include the numbers who will die of secondhand smoke or the environmental pollution caused by the tobacco industry. The current global dollar amount tied to direct medical expenses for the treatment of smoking-related illness is roughly five hundred billion dollars per year.
In the United States, the budgetary figures connected to direct medical expenses, lost productivity and environmental harm stand at around one hundred billion, and a staggering five billion of that is directed towards treating illness in those who were exposed to secondhand smoke.
Obviously this means that much of the global debate about finding financial resources for health care could be ended simply through the elimination of smoking. Many big businesses have recognized this fact and implemented anti-smoking policies in their buildings and on their campuses, and many more offer employees access to free smoking cessation programs. They are doing this as a way of reducing health care costs, but also as a way of ensuring a healthy, productive, and well-trained pool of employees available for many years to come. Consider that smoking kills people roughly thirteen years earlier than they would have naturally died, and this means that the workforce is seriously threatened all of the time.
It is significant to note that most people who want to stop smoking could feasibly do so over the course of a seventy-two hour period. This is the average amount of time that it takes the human body to eliminate all traces of nicotine, and to actually combat the cravings tied to addiction. Most people don’t want to endure the nausea, restlessness, headaches and mood swings of the detoxification process, however, and this is the reason that most smoking cessation programs rely on some form of nicotine replacement treatment or NRT.
Are the costs of NRT comparable to costs of health care expenses related to conditions arising from cigarette smoking? Not at all, most NRTs are used for a period of six months or less, and come in at far less expense than medical care. Additionally, when people really plan their smoking cessation programs they will be able to join support groups and find alternative treatments to help them combat the addiction. This tends to ensure success over the long-term and is often the reason that someone remains smoke-free for the rest of their life.
