http://www.laborradio.org/node/9217Need an extra incentive to quit smoking? Move to South Carolina and become a state employee. Jesse Russell takes a look at a new move by the state to cut down health insurance costs.
A South Carolina state worker who smokes or has a family member who smokes will be paying an additional $25 for health insurance starting in 2010. The state is now the eighth in the nation to take such measures to offset the costs for nonsmokers so they don’t need to pay for a co-workers decision to smoke or chew tobacco. The state’s budget board voted 302 to enact the increase for smokers, and quoted numbers that showed tobacco-related illness responsible for 7 percent of the $1.1 billion the state worker health plan has covered. The board estimates that 24 percent of state employees or their relatives smoke or chew tobacco. South Carolina is fourth in the nation for tobacco farming and has the lowest cigarette tax rate in the country. The trend of charging a health insurance surcharge to tobacco-users started with U.S. corporations like General Mills and American Financial. Some companies charge as much as $50 per month.