The health and social cost of smoking is six times more than government revenues from cigarettes
Jump to full article: ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation (ph), 2009-06-08
Author: LILITA BALANE, Newsbreak
Intro: The government's failure to impose higher taxes on tobacco products in the past four years has widened the gap between government earnings and the cost, borne by citizens, of treating diseases and of losing productivity due to premature deaths linked to smoking.
Government data showed that from 2000 to 2002, government excise tax from tobacco products averaged P18.92 billion a year. In those years, smoking's health and economic cost to the population was at P46 billion a year, according to estimates made by epidemiologist Dr. Antonio Dans of the University of the Philippines. It was more than double the amount of tobacco excise taxes collected.
In succeeding years, from 2003 to 2006, the health and economic cost increased to more than six times the excise tax collection. Government earnings averaged P23.26 billion annually, while health and economic cost averaged P148.5 billion, based on estimates by the World Health Organization.
There are no official figures available for the succeeding years, but given the pattern of health and economic cost tripling every three or four years, Newsbreak estimates that the average amount could have increased to P445.5 billion in 2007 and in 2008. That would be more than 17 times the P25.28 billion annual average excise tax collection in those two years. . . .
"Smoking decreases the productivity of the Filipino workforce once they get afflicted with smoking-related diseases. If they die prematurely due to these diseases, it will cut their future income streams," said health economist Stella Quimbo of the University of the Philippines.
"On top of this, the healthcare costs for these diseases are substantial. The aggregate cost of these diseases in terms of health care and productivity losses is the impact on the economy," she said. . . .
Chemotherapy costs a patient P12, 000 to P15, 000 every session, which is usually done once or twice a month.
At the LCP, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office shoulders the hospital fees and medicines of indigents.
Healthcare costs for lung cancer amounted to P403 million in 2003, according to WHO.
Chain Effect
Aside from treatment expenses, many lung cancer patients missed more days of work . . .
Deaths from lung cancer, especially at a young age, deepen productivity losses. With the country's life expectancy of 67 years, a lung cancer patient who dies at 40 loses 27 potential years when he could have earned more than P2.4 million. . . .
SEATCA'S Dorotheo explains the chain effect of getting sick from smoking: "If a smoker gets sick, there is not only the huge cost of healthcare borne by the patient and his family, but also the income lost by the patient who is unable to work, the income lost by family members who need to watch over the patient, and the use of human and other resources of the healthcare provider, such as government hospitals, that could have been focused on other patients' needs instead for a highly preventable disease."
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