Controlling the Out-of-Control Health Insurance Costs

With soaring health care costs, especially health insurance costs, the public sector is also taking injecting a strong dose (of pain) to its programs.

Under an Arizona Plan, Smokers and Obese Would Pay Fee for Medicaid - NYTimes.com: "Arizona, like many others states, says it is no longer able to adequately finance its Medicaid program. As part of a plan to cut costs, the state has proposed imposing a $50 fee on childless adults on Medicaid who are either obese or who smoke. In Arizona, almost half of all Medicaid recipients smoke; while the number of obese people is unclear, about one-in-four Arizonans is overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state’s plan must ultimately be approved by the federal government.

...

"The issue is this: we can’t keep complaining about the rising cost of health care and not drill down to what that means on the individual level. Maricopa County (where Phoenix is located) has started a program among its employees where smokers have to pay $450 more for health insurance than non-smokers. They take a swab to detect nicotine. The bottom line is that there’s plenty of evidence and studies that show there is an undeniable link between smoking and obesity and health care costs."

..."