Insurers may soon help kick the habit
SALEM — If you’re a smoker who wants to become an ex-smoker, your insurance may soon help you pay the cost of kicking the habit.
Oregon is about to become the seventh state in the country to require that health insurers include smoking cessation as a covered benefit. Under Senate Bill 734, which passed the Legislature and awaits Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s expected signature, insurance policies must reimburse enrollees 15 or older up to $500 for a “tobacco use cessation program” — education or medical programs to help quit the use of cigarettes or chewing tobacco.
That benefit is enough to cover a three-month quit-smoking course or a three-month supply of medication for those trying to end a tobacco addiction.
The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Bill Morrisette, D-Springfield, said he first became aware of the value of such help in the 1990s. But as state dollars for smoking cessation have become more scarce this decade, he said it made sense to require insurers to pick up more of the cost — especially since everyone with insurance shoulders the expense of treating smoking-related illnesses.
“It’s one of the more visible health hazards that we can deal with. And the fact that health insurers see this as a cost-effective way to deal with the price of smoking, I think, is great,” Morrisette said.
The bill was supported by one of Oregon’s largest insurers, Regence, and by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, which makes a drug used to combat tobacco addiction. Other insurers and the tobacco lobby, were neutral on the bill.
Lawmakers’ support was not unanimous, though. A handful of Republicans in the Senate and House opposed it. Some, such as Rep. Matt Wingard, R-Wilsonville, saw it as one more well-intentioned mandate on insurance companies to expand coverage, which could backfire by driving up the cost of premiums.
“We can just keep going and raising the cost of health insurance for folks and watch them drop off as they can’t afford it,” he said.
Similar insurance requirements are in state law in Colorado, New Jersey, North Dakota, New Mexico, Maryland and Rhode Island.
Oregon is one of 48 states that have for years included coverage of tobacco cessation through Medicaid for low-income and other residents who qualify for the government-furnished health care program.
Morrisette himself quit smoking cold turkey in the 1960s without any assistance from counselors or not-yet-invented medicinal aids. But for many, he said, it’s clear that willpower alone isn’t enough.
According to the American Cancer Society, 70 percent of smokers want to quit — with half of them attempting to give up tobacco.
However, fewer than 5 percent are successful, the cancer society says. The society also projects that half of all smokers will die of a tobacco-related disease if they don’t quit.
The society’s Oregon lobbyist, Moe Spencer, said assistance programs such as the ones that will be covered by Oregon insurers under SB 734 are neither a necessity for those who can quit on their own or a sure-thing for those who can’t.
“Cessation is one way to get people off that’s been proven to work,” he said.
Oregon’s mandate that insurers reimburse for smoking cessation costs takes effect Jan. 1.
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