Frontiers in Health Policy Research.

• Position: Brief Article

The NBER held its fourth annual conference on Frontiers in Health Policy Research in Arlington, Virginia, on June 14. NBER Health Care Program Director Alan M. Garber of Stanford University organized this program:

Michael J. Moore, NBER and Duke University, and James W. Hughes, Bates College, "The Health Care Consequences of Smoking and Its Regulation" Gabriel A. Picone, University of South Florida, and Frank A. Sloan, NBER and Duke University, "How Costly Are Smokers to Other People? Longitudinal Evidence on the Near Elderly"

Darius Lakdawalla, RAND Corporation, and Tomas Philipson, NBER and University of Chicago, "Public Financing and the Market for Long-Term Care" Amber E. Bernato and Christopher R. Kagay, Stanford University; Alan M. Garber; and Mark C. McClellan, NBER and Stanford University, "Trends in the Use of Intensive Procedures at the End of Life"

Ernst R. Berndt, NBER and MIT; Susan H. Busch, Harvard University; and Richard G. Frank, NBER and Harvard University, "Price and Harvard University, "Price Indexes for the Treatment of Depression"

The literature on the health economics of smoking presents two principal facts: that smoking increases health care costs and that restrictions on smoking lead to reductions in smoking prevalence and intensity. Moore and Hughes extend the literature and ask whether cigarette tax increases lead to lower health care costs. Using data from the 1991 and 1993 National Health Interview Surveys, they find that the health care benefits of smoking cessation are greater than previously believed. There is also weak evidence that tax increases lead to higher rates of smoking cessation. In combination, these results suggest that, in addition to providing a source for funding excess health care costs, tax increases may lower health care costs directly by inducing smokers to quit.

Picone and Sloan use data from four waves of the Health and Retirement Study to assess the impact of smoking on use of hospital and physicians' services and nursing home care. They limit their analysis to people aged 51 to 67 ("near elderly"); during this phase of the life cycle, many adverse effects of smoking, measured in terms of mortality and morbidity, begin to occur. In contrast to past studies, this one separates the health expenditure burden of smoking by the type of health insurer, since smokers are more likely to be on public insurance and to be uninsured (holding a large number of other determinants of coverage...