But even that wouldn't come close to reimbursing government expenditures since healthcare costs to treat smoking diseases were primarily caused by cigarettes that were bought and smoked five, ten, fifteen or more years ago (when prices were much lower than now).
This is basically one socialist concept to justify another one, implemented earlier. Without gov't taking over healthcare costs, then the 'government expenditures' on health care would be zero. And there would be no 'cigarettes paying their fair share' involved. And healthcare costs go down when a smoker dies and the costs to that point are nowhere near what they are after living a longer life, in terms of healthcare costs as well as more gov't expenditures on another socialist concept - social security.
But once you establish those socialist programs - the above, plus food stamps, ADC, low income housing, eco-policies, and perhaps even tuition-free college if a certain person is elected, ad nauseum, then you can control people and demonize them. Without those programs, people go about their own business and help others as had been the tradition in this country a lot longer than the socialist impositions.
This is the TC way of having their cake and eating it too (obesity, btw, has the same reduction in costs after death.) They want to be able to cite "480,000 tobacco related deaths", and at the same time say that healthcare costs skyrocket. And neither is the case.
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On smoking and cost to gov't. From Brad Rodu:
Tobacco Truth: The Surprising Economic Effects of Smoking & Quitting
"With respect to federal health care, “Medicaid would see the largest savings over the 2013-2021 period—about $560 million,” while “Medicare would have the next-largest savings in the near term—about $250 million.”
"But the CBO also reported some expenses related to cessation: “By contrast, Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program, which pays retirement benefits, would experience the largest net increasein costs because of the policy. On net, outlays for Social Security would rise by about $150 million over the 2013-2021 period.”
"Medicaid/Medicare savings would exceed increased Social Security payments until 2025. After that, Social Security increases due to increased longevity would exceed Medicaid/Medicare savings.
"Not smoking is associated with increased longevity, which is associated with increased net costs for the health care system, rather than savings. "
Fewer Smokers Means Higher Taxpayer Costs, Study Finds - Forbes
"The negative effects would be financial. While the government makes more money from lower levels of smoking from 2013 to 2021 — a relatively paltry $730 million — after then the effects of greater longevity would start to overcome the savings from tobacco-related medical costs. Rising income tax revenue from healthier workers would mean the increase still served to reduce the deficit until around 2060, the CBO estimates. Then the deficit would start to get larger. [which means more taxes on even non-smokers!]
"Obviously, everybody would be better off if they quit smoking.
What the CBO study shows is the litigation that showered such huge benefits on a few was based on the false premise that cigarettes cost taxpayers money."
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/regulation/2014/12/regulation-v37n4-7.pdf
"There is strong consensus that people smoke less as the price
increases, with a price elasticity of –0.4 for adults and –0.65 for
adolescents.
—Stanton Glantz
An extensive literature has shown that in response to a 1 percent
increase in cigarette prices, overall cigarette consumption
among adults would fall by somewhere between 0.3 and 0.7
percent, with about half of the reduction being attributed to
the reduced number of current smokers and half attributed to
the reduced number of cigarettes consumed per smoker.
—Hai-Yen Sung, Wendy Max, and James Lightwood,
comment to U.S. Food and Drug Administration
"The hypothesis expressed in these quotes, that higher cigarette
taxes save a substantial number of lives and reduce health care
costs by reducing smoking, is central to the argument in support
of regulatory control of cigarettes through higher cigarette taxes."
...
"Total cigarette spending will go up by
$15.15 billion per year because of the tax and price increase. Now
assume that every person who quits smoking lives nine years
longer as a result (an assumption consistent with the academic
literature), so the tax increase results in 3.7 million extra life
years. At what cost did the tax achieve this gain in life years? If
we assume that the average smoker is 40 years old and lives until
69 (instead of 78), the total increase in expenditure as a result of
the tax increase is $439.4 billion (29 × $15.15 billion), or $119,000
per life-year. The $119,000 figure is above the $100,000 per life
year that is commonly used to decide whether a drug or medical
treatment is sufficiently cost-effective to be recommended for use.
Clearly, raising cigarette taxes is not the public health windfall
claimed by anti-smoking advocates."
