Yes. NY State published numbers as part of a study to determine the cost of lung cancer and the tax levy that should be placed on cigarettes to offset the expenses. Here are approximate values.
One non-smoker in 4000 will be diagnosed with lung cancer.. One smoker in 150 will be diagnosed with lung cancer. Since lung cancer does not show itself until rather late in the process 50% of all patients will not survive more than a year after diagnosis. In the US, average medical expenses for that year will be more than $150,000. The expenses are well over $500,000 if the patient survives longer than a year.
“Using recent health and medical spending surveys, researchers calculated that 8.7 percent of all healthcare spending, or $170 billion a year, is for illness caused by tobacco smoke, and public programs like Medicare and Medicaid paid for most of these costs. ” Source
Given that Americans buy 22 Billion packs per year that comes to a cost of $170B/22B= $7.70 per pack to break even. Make it $10 to pay for the tax collection and administration..
————
I found another reference to this and they have similar numbers. 2002 Study Source
“Each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States costs the nation more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity, the government said today.
The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the nation’s total cost of smoking at $3,391 a year for every smoker, or $157.7 billion. Health experts had previously estimated the cost at $96 billion a year.
Americans buy about 22 billion packs of cigarettes annually. The agency’s study is the first to establish a cost to the nation of each pack smoked.
The agency estimated the nation’s medical costs related to smoking at $3.45 per pack, and said job productivity lost because of premature death from smoking amounted to $3.73 per pack, for a total of $7.18.”
My “back of the envelope” estimate was not too far off.
This does not include the costs of a several billion dollar forest fire.