One of the public health steps within health reform legislation that hasn't gotten much attention is covering smoking cessation in Medicaid. The Senate will cover it for pregnant women under Medicaid, which itself will be expanded. The House goes further, covering smoking cessation for all Medicaid beneficiaries.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids is pushing for the House approach. The group's president Matt Myers said in a statement this week:
The final health care reform legislation should require comprehensive coverage of smoking cessation treatment, including medication and counseling with no cost-sharing requirements, for all Medicaid recipients, as the House-passed legislation would
He notes that lower-income Americans are more likely to smoke -- a third of adult Medicaid beneficiaries versus about one-fifth of the overall adult population -- and that about one in 10 dollars spent on Medicaid is tobacco related. Helping people stop smoking, anti-tobacco groups say, makes economic sense as well as medical sense.
The American Lung Association is also considering funding cessation programs, by both state and federal health programs, a priority. This week the association released its annual Tobacco Control 2009 report, reminding us of what’s been accomplished -- and what’s not. The Obama administration got high praise for passing long-awaited legislation to give the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. The report also praised the tobacco tax hike, which more than doubled to $1.01 per pack, although that's still well short of the $2.68 that the Lung Association favors as a better smoking deterrent.
The weak point in the tobacco control agenda, the association said, is cessation support in both state and federal health plans, such as Medicare. “The federal government doesn't help smokers quit -- an effort that would save lives and money," said the report, which also critiques states that cut back on anti-smoking programs during the recession.
Smoking-related disease is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing 400,000 people each year. States that have aggressively worked to bring down smoking rates, particularly among teens, have seen the benefits.
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