LETTER: United States should ban smoking to control health costs

As the arguments rage on how to pay for health care, it is incredible that no one has brought up what is perhaps the biggest single contributor to poor health and its costs: smoking. Treating tobacco-related diseases costs around $300 billion a year. And this is from a toxic substance that should have been banned when its health impacts became known 50 or 60 years ago. If Washington is serious about solving the health care riddle, this is where to begin.