www.alkoholpolitik.ch

On November 22, 2010 the World Health Organization (WHO) released its annual Health report on financing health systems and universal coverage. The report recommends governments to raise the taxes on tobacco and alcohol to help pay for healthcare of millions of people who are unable to afford it worldwide.
The need for guidance in this area has become all the more pressing at a time characterized by both economic downturn and rising health-care costs, as populations age, chronic diseases increase, and new and more expensive treatments
become available. (Source: Eurocare Newsletter Winter 2010 )

A statewide commission will urge legislators to create a drug czar to oversee drug and alcohol addiction programs.
Healthcare costs associated with alcohol and drug abuse amounted to $3.2 billion during 2006 in Oregon – while 70 percent of people who were incarcerated had a substance abuse problem. Attorney General John Kroger made this quite clear when he spoke to a legislative health policy committee recently. (Source: Google Alcohol News, 11/17/10) thelundreport.org, 11/15/10

Hospital_Booze. As competition among hospitals stiffens, some institutions are resorting to offering patients a few too many comforts of home— or of their local bar. Despite being known to weaken the immune system and prolong illness, hospitals are starting to serve patients alcohol in hopes of wooing more business.
While these hospitals purportedly rely on physician approval, the potential for abuse is staggering. Susan Levin, the director of nutrition education at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, called the practice ‘mind-boggling.’“When you consider amount of medications people are on in hospitals — it’s a dangerous system to begin with before you even start mixing alcohol into the cocktail,“ she noted in an interview with NPR.
Considering that so many patients are in the hospital in the first place due to alcohol-related problems, this idea seems especially twisted. The healthcare costs from alcohol consumption alone have been estimated to more than $26 billion dollars, or $686 for every person living in America. With all that’s known about alcohol and health, it is shocking that hospitals are willing to put their patients at risk just for a few extra dollars. (Source: Marin Institute, 11/03/10)

Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) and several of his colleagues want wealthier Americans to “share the sacrifice” and contribute higher taxes to support the expansion of America’s war effort in Afghanistan.
There’s another way, a better way, for Congress to engage the American people in funding the war — and, as a bonus, reducing healthcare costs. What patriot would oppose higher taxes on alcoholic beverages and a new tax on sugary beverages to support our troops? We could even test the patriotism of the large foreign corporations that sell almost all of the beer and much of the liquor and wine consumed in this country, because the alcohol surtax would be imposed on them. They could then choose whether to pass the tax on to their hard-working American customers. By George A. Hacker – 12/08/09 07:36 PM ET THE HILL, WASHINGTON Online-comment: Good idea! It is a fact that higher prices reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol related harm which costs our society many billions a year. The same would be the effect with higher prices on sugary beverages which are to blame for part of obesity. It is difficult to rise prices by taxation. But as a little sacrifice to help in funding the war it could work. And everybody would have a personal profit in lower health costs as we all are passive drinkers.

Including addiction treatment in national healthcare reform will save the nation billions of dollars in emergency care and other health costs, according to a new white paper from the Open Society Institute’s Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap initiative. The „Unforeseen Benefits: Addiction Treatment Reduces Health Care Costs“ white paper said that in addition to fewer costly visits to emergency rooms, making addiction treatment more available and affordable will reduce hospital stays and other healthcare costs. (Source: Join Together, 7/20/09)