NYT: Medicare to Add Help for Smokers

[DeepModem Mom]

Medicare to Add Help for Smokers
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: December 24, 2004


WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The Bush administration said Thursday that Medicare would soon pay for counseling to help beneficiaries stop smoking, a major expansion of the services covered by the program.

Medicare provides health insurance for 41 million people. Gary R. Karr, a spokesman for the federal Medicare agency, estimated that 4 million of them would be eligible for the new coverage and that 440,000 would take advantage of it next year.

Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said: "Millions of our beneficiaries have smoked for many years and are now experiencing heart problems, lung problems and other diseases that smoking can cause. Just about all of them will be eligible for the new coverage. You're never too old to quit smoking and to get benefits of quitting."

The new coverage will be available to Medicare beneficiaries who have illnesses caused or complicated by smoking. These include heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, emphysema, weak bones, blood clots and cataracts, which together account for the bulk of Medicare spending....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/politics/24smoke.html?hp&ex=1103950800&en=422f7e0a682eaca6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[0007]

1. Holy Mackerel, I can hear the freepers now!

"Public health experts said the number of people taking advantage of the new coverage might be substantially higher than the government assumed. Estimates prepared by the Partnership for Prevention indicate that several million people may take advantage of the benefit, at a cost of $50 million a year.

Smoking is the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths in the United States. Federal officials said that smoking-related diseases killed 440,000 people a year, including 300,000 who are on Medicare because they are 65 or older.

......this will drive 'em insane with hate!

[Ian David]

2. Leave the anti-smoking programs to THE STATES

The tobacco-growing South will end up with more lung cancer than the north.