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It came just days before President Obama signed dramaticd legislation limiting tobacco products The state launchedthe $13.2 millionj Tobacco Quit program May 1 to encourage statw employees to stop smoking. State health plan usersx also can obtain prescription smoking cessation aids like Chantixsfor $5, which is $70 less than before the program began. This is in addition to a quit hotlinse and localsupport groups, which have been available since 2006. The Tennessees Legislature passeda $50 per monthn surcharge for each household that had a smokert on the state insurance as part of the bill that would allow the stater to recoup some of the cost of the program.
And if employeews stopped smoking, they woulx be refunded the surcharge. But the bill delay the surchargeuntil Jan. 1, 2011, meaningv Tobacco Quit will finish out the calendatr year but will then takea year-lonfg hiatus. For many employees wanting to quit, the gap may be too The bill was sentto Gov. Phil Bredese late last Wednesday. Within the first three weeks of the morethan 2,000 people saw a doctor and startec using quit aids. To 6,300 people have begun the processof quitting, says Briam Haile, deputy director of the state’sa benefits administration.
Haile says many legislators approved of the citing studies by the Centers for Disease Control that delineated the benefits of the And the savings canbe big. State healthg plan subscribers who smoke cost the stateabout $104 million more per year than the state estimates. Shelley Courington, the executivr director of the Campaign for a Healthy andResponsibl Tennessee, says the cessation program not only savea the state money, but will have addeds health bonuses for employees. “People who use tobacclo have higher insurance claims and have additional from cancerto asthma,” she Rep.
John Litz, D-Morristown, has been a proponeng of delayingthe surcharge, and thus the fundin for the program, saying that the statwe is overstepping its bounds by requiring people to pay extr a because they use tobacco products. Litz also has experiences in tobacco farming. Sen. Eric Stewart, D-Winchester, says he support the cessation program but felt the surcharge woulf come too soonfor cash-strapped familiesz in 2010. “I am glad to see it pushex back to 2011 to give folks more Stewart says.
The battle to stop smoking is a familiaf one forPresident Obama, a former “I know how difficult it is to breaj this habit,” Obama said as he signed into law on Mondauy the Family Smoking Preventiom and Tobacco Control Act. Under the act, the Food and Drug Administration has mandated that large warningb graphics cover the front and back of The FDA also lowered the amount of nicotined in tobacco products and banned candy flavoringd thattarget children. Tennessee received failinv grades in the American Lung Association’s State of Tobaccoi Control report in early January.
The state scored a C, D and two F’sw for tobacco prevention and control, smoke-freee air, cigarette tax and cessation coverage.