http://nbc25.com/Global/story.asp?S=962246&nav=0aMIBdcG

"CHARLESTON, WV OCTOBER 6 - State workers who smoke or chew tobacco will be forced to pay more for life insurance next year and will likely miss health insurance discounts.

The agency had two reasons for making tobacco users pay more: to cover their higher health and mortality costs and to encourage them to quit."

Encourage them to quit. I hope someone sues.

My comments to the paper:

quote:

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What a crock of chit!

WEST VIRGINIA SMOKERS' CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE STATE ECONOMY - 2001

Smokers are not a financial burden as been implied: Smoking-related healthcare costs are a pittance to overall healthcare costs (8% in my state of Maine). If every smoker quit, healthcare costs would go down only temporarily and then rise above the amount they are complaining about now, because nonsmokers get sick too and for more years.
Smokers more than make up for their extra cost by dying (their choice-not theirs) sooner; collecting less social security and pensions, and less time in nursing homes. The state tax on cigarettes is all gravy. This is all backed up by facts.

"When you buy a pack of cigarettes, you pay the price of the cigarettes. You also assume some implicit costs that you know about if you are aware of the health effects of smoking. But there might be another part of the cost that you don't pay, the cost that smokers impose on other people. That is the kind of cost that we were trying to examine. When we looked at the study done by health economist Ray Manning and several associates (funded by the RAND Corporation) we found that the spillover effect per pack of cigarettes was 33 cents. At the time (1994), the sum of federal, state, and local cigarette taxes was about 50 cents per pack. So the cigarette tax was already higher than the spillover cost."--Jane Gravelle, economist, Congressional Research Service.

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

"If people stopped smoking today, there would be a savings in health care costs, but only in the short term. Eventually, smoking cessation would lead to increased health care costs." --New England Journal of Medicine,1997;337:1052-7.

"The lifetime health cost for a smoking man is $72,700 and $94,700 for a smoking woman. For nonsmokers, the cost is $83,400 for a man; $111,000 for a woman.

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The Congressional Research Servive, in the 1998 revision of their study found: Smokers cost the federal government $9 billion in medical care and $10 billion in lost contributions to social security, etc. But they also found they save $40 billion in retirement costs (mostly social security), about $8 billion in nursing home costs (mostly from medicaid), and they collect $5.6 billion in cigarette taxes. When added up, smokers saved the federal government $34.6 billion dollars yearly.

State governments saved money too. After subtracting net medical costs of $1.5 billion and $1.8 billion from lost contributions from a savings of $4.8 billion in nursing home costs financed through medicaid and $.6 billion in retirement savings, and $7.6 billion in cigarette taxes, smokers saved the states almost $9.7 billion.

That's a total savings of $44.3 billion.

Since this 1998 report, taxes have skyrocketed on cigarettes in many states and the tobacco settlement was signed. The settlement was for reimbursement of past and future medical expenses, so states have not only been reimbursed, but smokers are paid up to infinity on future medical costs.

Leaving out new taxes and the settlement, smokers have been overpaying the state and federal governments for an average $950 each year I figure. But to be fair, there are about the same number as former smokers as smokers so if there is ever a rebate given, it should be split up between the two groups and average about $475 each, each year.

Now, the WV state insurance program may feel the effects of smokers costs, but either it should be taken out of the excise tax or figured into the tobacco settlement, which supposedly covers it.