During its enrollment period this year, the State Health Plan received a higher-than-expected number of applications from enrollees who were willing to pay more for their health care coverage (70/30) due to their status as smokers. Smokers had the option to enroll in a lower-cost (80/20) plan if they pledged that they didn’t smoke or certified that they had enrolled in a tobacco cessation plan. But since so few smokers were willing to take that pledge, the Plan decided this week to abandon their intention to check the 80/20 enrollees randomly to ensure that they weren’t smoking. The Plan had allocated $500,000 for the monitoring effort.
To learn more about the State Health Plan and the tobacco-cessation program, click here.
