Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
$4.21 billion over 5 years doesn't cover the costs that smokers have on the health care system?
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Are you sure. I have never seen full life cycle numbers for in broken down but I would think its close.
Per capita alberta spends somewhere around 5k on health care. People over 65 cost on average something like 12k, people over 80 cost something like 20k a year.
So a smoker paying 1k a year in taxes pays a 20% premium for health care. They also die sooner reducing the number of post income tax paying years they collect CPP, OAS etc. From a health care point of view they may just move their expensive years sooner or they may be more expesive.
Also the smoking rate is highest amoungst 20 - 30 year olds. Many of them will quit smoking before they are 40. The health risks of smoking disappear between 10 and 20 years after quitting and become comparable to those of a person who never smoked. If you quit by 30 you will have likely paid 10k extra in tax without putting additional strain on the system.
So i bet its really close to being break even.