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OPINION AND COMMENT - By Bob Weaver
If you thought the gigantic effort to get money from tobacco companies was to help nicotine addicts and the national health,
you might reconsider.
The "settlement" has largely enriched state coffers and lawyers who went after the big bucks. A trio of West Virginia lawyers
got several million dollars for their efforts.
It was announced yesterday you can't receive free nicotine patches or counseling from a state hot line anymore if you don't
have the right kind of insurance
The hot line was established in July 2000 for state residents enrolled in the Public Employees Insurance Agency or Medicaid,
and it was later expanded statewide with funds from West Virginia's tobacco settlement.
The multi-million dollar tobacco settlement money has been shifted to other state programs that are under funded. Programs
to prevent kids from getting hooked on tobacco and other tobacco cessation programs have faced yearly battles to
exist.
The hot line was off-limits yesterday to people without health insurance or whose insurance does not cover tobacco cessation
products.
It reminds me of public health efforts to help alcoholics and chemically dependent individuals, most of whom are
family-centered and still trying to work. Treatment programs which actually addressed the problem and helped individuals get
through primary and secondary withdrawal are rarely covered by public health funds, or for that matter, insurance
policies.
An executive with the Upper Ohio Valley Health Plan once told me that too much money was being wasted, and plan
managers would decide if treatment was necessary. It is called managed care.
Money to treat alcoholism and addiction is
about 1% of the health care dollar, even though stats say the disease drains more money from lives and the economy that any
other health program, particularly if you include nicotine.
Nicotine use becomes addiction, although we like to call it other things.
Department of Health and Human Resources spokesman Joe Thornton calls the nicotine hotline move temporary.
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