Impact of Broadened Coverage of Smoking Cessation Treatments on Cardiovascular Disease

One third of all premature tobacco-attributable deaths are due to CVD and tobacco is the cause of approximately 15% of all CVD attributable. Primary and secondary prevention strategies that combine evidenced based tobacco dependence treatment programs along with cigarette taxes and media campaigns can result in hundreds of thousand of fewer excess deaths from smoking attributable CVD. Expanded insurance from both commercial and public insurers will be greatly expanded by the recently enacted federal health care reform but barriers to reducing the avoidable morbidity and mortality that is due to tobacco use is impacted by the potential for remaining financial barriers to full insurance coverage from Americans in regions of the country with the highest smoking prevalence rates.