Medicaid Programs Confuse Smokers Willing to Quit

Online, March 18, 2010 (Newswire.com) - More Anti-Tobacco Programs is needed for Medicaid Recipients

Recently scientists found that not enough help and actions are received from Medicaid programs in West Virginia, which has the country's highest smoking rate.

They declared that the state's Medicaid plan is both too confusing and too restricting when it comes to proposing smokers a chance to quit.

Some smokers may have three varieties at trying to quit smoking, including nicotine gum and a patch. Some of them may have more, depending on which Medicaid plan they're part of.

No one on Medicaid in West Virginia has access to all of the options at once, according to Deborah Brown, acting CEO of the lung association's Mid-Atlantic chapter.

"The variation in benefits is what's confusing. People don't know what their options are," she explained.

The groups, which involve the American Heart Association and the West Virginia Medical Association, want Medicaid to offer recipients who smoke a plan that includes all seven CDC-recommended treatments: gum, patch, nasal spray, inhaler, lozenge and two prescription medications.

"West Virginia Medicaid will pay for a lung transplant, however, they won't pay for lower-cost, complete cessation therapies," Brown added.

The state's Medicaid operation has a budget of about $3 billion in state and federal dollars, serving roughly 300,000 people. Tobacco-related health wasted costs Medicaid about $229 million annually, according to the state Division of Tobacco Prevention.

None of the groups at the statehouse had an estimate for how much it would cost to offer Medicaid recipients the full range of treatments the CDC recommends. A call to John Law, spokesman for the Department of Public Health, was not immediately returned.

Gov. Joe Manchin said that he wants to see definite results about what the plan would act, but that he's provides of efforts to reduce smoking.

West Virginia is characterized as one of the states where health problems associated with cigarettes shade is large, because about 27 percent of adults smoke here, the highest rate in the country.

Researchers added that in West Virginia, a Department of Health and Human Resources study found that 46 percent of pregnant women receiving Medicaid smoke, approximately five times the national average for expectant mothers.