South Carolina State Employed Smokers Pay An Insurance Penalty

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/9217

Need an extra incentive to quit smoking? Move to South Carolina and become a state employee. Jesse Russell takes a look at a new move by the state to cut down health insurance costs.

A South Carolina state worker who smokes or has a family member who smokes will be paying an additional $25 for health insurance starting in 2010. The state is now the eighth in the nation to take such measures to offset the costs for nonsmokers so they don’t need to pay for a co-workers decision to smoke or chew tobacco. The state’s budget board voted 302 to enact the increase for smokers, and quoted numbers that showed tobacco-related illness responsible for 7 percent of the $1.1 billion the state worker health plan has covered. The board estimates that 24 percent of state employees or their relatives smoke or chew tobacco. South Carolina is fourth in the nation for tobacco farming and has the lowest cigarette tax rate in the country. The trend of charging a health insurance surcharge to tobacco-users started with U.S. corporations like General Mills and American Financial. Some companies charge as much as $50 per month.

[glowing]

1. Well, this will lead to being fat next or having a pre-condition like diabetes to

increase the rates.. We need to switch off for-profit insurance and have real healthcare.

[elocs]

2. The last place I worked they raised the insurance payments because of smokers.

As a nonsmoker, why should I have to pay more for my insurance because others choose to smoke? I don't think it is unreasonable to have smokers pay for rising health costs due to having to cover smokers or tobacco users.

[DJ13]

3. As someone who doesnt have a chronic condition why should I

........have to pay for those who do?

[elocs]

4. Cute, but where I worked they specifically cited smoking as the cause of the increase.

I am sort of guessing that someone does not choose to have a chronic condition, so they? I mean, they cannot have it, then quit it, then take it up again. Nice try, no cigar.