Health Care Costs among Smokers, Former Smokers, and Never Smokers in an HMO

Objective. We estimate long‐term health care costs of former smokers compared with continuing and never smokers using a retrospective cohort study of HMO enrollees. Previous research on health care costs associated with former smokers has suggested that quitters may incur greater health care costs than continuing smokers, therefore, getting people to quit creates more expensive health care consumers. We studied the trend in cost for former smokers over seven years after they quit to assess how the cessation experience impacts total health care cost. Data Sources/Study Setting. Group Health Cooperative (GHC), a nonprofit mixed model health maintenance organization in western Washington state. Study Design. Retrospective cohort study using automated and primary data collected through telephone interviews. Principal Findings. We find that former smokers' costs are significantly greater (p