4 ms·

Better title: Medicaid could cut costs by 0.45% if 1% of smokers quit smoking Absolute units like billions of dollars are meaningless in these contexts. Please

• phoronixrly 3y ago
  Hey, I'd take a 45% reduction of Medicaid costs if everyone stopped smoking right away. That's how the math goes, right? :)
• nerdjon 3y ago
  I don't think thats really a better title. It gives the impression that the reduction is less than the impact of people quitting. I get where you are going, but this doesn't communicate it well. It would be better to somehow tie it into taxes or something if we want to go down that path. Or maybe say something like "If all smokers quit it could save Medicaid 45% of its budget". Saying the same thing but I feel like putting 0.45% next to 1% leads to a gut reaction (since the savings is smaller than the amount of people stopping smoking) that does not properly communicate what is being said.
  • cosmotic 3y ago
    I agree, it's confusing because the two percents are of different things.
• smegsicle 3y ago
  > if 1% of smokers quit smoking you'd think that's what they meant, but the article seems to be talking about if 1% of medicaid recipients stopped smoking, not medicaid recipients who are smokers only about a quarter are actually smokers (who therefore could conceivably stop) so if 1% of them stopped smoking, we'd be closer to 0.1% of the budget