It urges all sectors – health care systems, employers, insurers, government agencies, quitlines, and policymakers – to work together to develop and promote sound tobacco control policies. This causes or complicates many of the Nation’s most common and costly chronic diseases (cancer, heart and lung disease, stroke, asthma) and results in the deaths of over 400,000 people every year. We are failing
as a nation to provide the treatment that is needed to help these people quit their addiction to tobacco. Beyond the physical costs, failing to help people quit takes a financial toll – over $180 billion every year – a toll that U.S. taxpayers, investors and business owners can no longer afford in today’s uncertain economic environment. This is due to a combination of factors, not the least of which is the failure of public and private policies to give tobacco users full access to all the tools they need to quit. Our failure to act is costing us precious lives and money - we can and we must do better.
