Groups Join
to Curb Smoking
TOFCO's pioneering
campaign brings together leaders in business, labor,
insurance, and health policy to achieve two goals:
1) Encourage businesses to cover and promote
help for employees who want to quit smoking or chewing
tobacco and 2) Urge insurers to provide - as
standard benefits - the counseling and medications
to help them quit.
The effort brings together businesses,
labor, health insurers, health insurance agents, medical
providers, and health policy experts. We engage in one-on-one
discussions with health benefits decision-makers; distribute
an Employer’s
Toolkit to businesses and health insurance agents;
provide continuing education for agents; speak and exhibit
at forums with agents, businesses, unions and health
care providers.
We have received
national
recognition and funding from the Smoking
Cessation Leadership Center to explore the promise
of a national Make It Your Business effort.
"Clearly,
this is a tough economy to add new health services,
but I would argue that helping people quit tobacco is
a wise investment that will pay off in both the short
term and the long term."
Peter Kohler,
M.D.
Past Advisory
Committee Chair, Make It Your Business Campaign President,
Oregon Health & Science University
Pay
less to help employees stop smoking or pay more later
Oregon businesses
would pay far less to prevent tobacco-related diseases
than to treat them, according to a new study by Milliman
USA, one of the nation’s leading actuarial firms.
On average,
effective tobacco cessation costs 29 cents per member
per month, or $3.48 per year, according to the Milliman
study. In contrast, the study shows one-year medical
costs in Oregon for tobacco-related diseases are as
follows:
Lung cancer:
$42,045
Heart failure: $23,234
Low birth-weight baby: $27,776
"It’s
simple math," said Dawn Robbins, health policy
coordinator for the Tobacco-Free Coalition of Oregon
(TOFCO). "For the cost of that one heart attack,
a business could buy a year’s worth of tobacco
cessation benefits for 6,676 employees and dependents."
Only a handful
of Oregon’s insurers routinely cover the counseling
and medications that research demonstrates to be effective.
A fact sheet
about the study and related materials are available
to download in either HTML or PDF format.
Back
to the Top |
