H-1686.1  _______________________________________________

                          HOUSE BILL 1999

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      56th Legislature     1999 Regular Session

By Representatives Edmonds, Cody, Pennington, Cooper, Conway, Kenney, Esser, Kagi, Lovick, Veloria and Rockefeller

Read first time 02/12/1999.  Referred to Committee on Health Care.

Providing a smoking cessation program to recipients of medical assistance.

    AN ACT Relating to smoking cessation; adding a new section to chapter 74.09 RCW; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  (1) Tobacco use is the leading cause of  disease and premature death in every population group in the United States and tends to affect the low-income population disproportionately.  People with low income have higher smoking rates and are less likely to stop their smoking habit.  It has been estimated that the state currently spends approximately two hundred thirty million dollars each year through its medical assistance programs to pay for medical and long-term care services for people with health conditions associated with tobacco use.

    (2) Smoking cessation programs have been found to be effective when they are targeted to specific groups.  Effective prevention and control programs that stress appropriate and direct intervention strategies need to be implemented to reduce the devastating health effects of tobacco use among low-income people and to simultaneously reduce the medical assistance expenditures for the treatment of the health effects of tobacco.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  A new section is added to chapter 74.09 RCW to read as follows:

    The department shall develop and implement a smoking cessation program for medical assistance clients with payments received from the master settlement agreement entered into by the state of Washington with leading United States tobacco product manufacturers.  The  smoking cessation program shall include but is not limited to using intervention strategies using federal food and drug administration approved cessation pharmaceutical products and therapies.  The program shall begin offering services by July 1, 2001.  The department may establish an advisory group of technical experts and citizens to provide advice related to the design and implementation of the smoking cessation program.

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