Monday, April 17, 2006
The Massachusetts health care bill may tend to penalize smokers and provide the incentive for enrollees to try the quit. One provision of the bill, signed up on April 12th, this will allow private insurers to charge smokers higher premiums than nonsmokers.
The state had also plans to spend $7 million a year for two years on smoking-cessation classes for Medicaid recipients. This law will be providing financial incentives for insurers to offer other health programs such as exercise classes.
Details of the law will take months to work out but, the co-chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing said, the goal is clear. Sen. Richard Moore, a Democrat from Uxbridge, said the state wants to "discourage unhealthy habits like smoking that only add to the cost of healthcare and obviously have a negative impact on the health of individuals."
James Roosevelt, an executive at Tufts Health Plan, said the company is still evaluating the provision. They need to determine if providing tools for quitting is more effective than imposing financial penalties, he said.
posted by kanth
@ 2:23 AM
permanent link | Post a Comment |
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home