The total cost of caring for people with health problems caused by cigarette smoking counting all sources of medical payments is about $72.7 billion per year, according to health economists at the University of California. The figure is almost six times higher than the cost per year of smokingrelated Medicaid payments alone, reported last spring by the same Berkeley and UCSF economists. The new total estimate translates the adverse health effects of smoking into dollar terms, the universal language of decision makers, said the analysis published today in Public Health Reports. All payments made in 1993 by Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans Administration medical programs, military medical programs, private health insurance companies and outofpocket payments were analyzed for that fraction of illness caused by

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