TY  - JOUR
AU  - Cutler,D.
AU  - Frank,R.G.
AU  - King,C.,III
AU  - Rosenthal,M.B.
AU  - Vigdor,E.R.
AU  - Epstein,A.M.
AU  - Hartman,R.S.
AU  - Newhouse,J.P.
TI  - How Good a Deal Was the Tobacco Settlement?: Assessing Payments to Massachusetts
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 7747
PY  - 2000
Y2  - June 2000
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7747
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w7747.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David M. Cutler
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/496-5216
Fax: 617/496-8951
E-Mail: dcutler@harvard.edu
AB  - We estimate the increment in Massachusetts Medicaid program costs attributable to smoking from December 20, 1991, to 1998.  We describe how our methods improve upon earlier estimates of analogous costs at the national level.  Current costs to the Massachusetts Medicaid program approximate the payments to Massachusetts under the tobacco settlement of November 1998.  Whether these payments are viewed as appropriate compensation for Medicaid costs over time depends upon the rate of increase in future health care costs, the rate of decline in smoking, the proportion of smoking that should be attributed to the actions of the tobacco companies and the liklihood that state would have prevailed at trial.  The costs to the Medicaid program are dwarfed by the internal costs to smokers themselves.
ER  -