Tag: smoking cessation
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Kentucky’s 40% surcharge for smokers on Obamacare plans probably scared some away, hasn’t encouraged them to quit
Allowing insurers to charge smokers extra for Obamacare health insurance appears to have discouraged them from getting it, “undercutting a major goal of the law,” Carolyn Y. Johnson reports for...
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Medicaid hearings in Bowling Green and Frankfort elicit nearly incessant criticism; third and final hearing in Hazard next Wed.
Supporters of the current Medicaid expansion sat on the front row of a packed hearing room in Frankfort. By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Supporters were few and far between...
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Study says if Ky. cut its smoking rate to the national average, it could save $1.7 billion in health-care costs the very next year
Illustration from University of California-San Francisco By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News If Kentucky could cut its smoking rate to the national average, it would save an estimated $1.7 billion...
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Want to avoid prostate cancer? Evidence suggests that one thing you could do, if you’re a smoker, is to stop smoking
As fewer men are smoking, fewer are dying from prostate cancer, and the trends appear to be related, especially in Kentucky. “From 1999 through 2010, decreasing prostate cancer mortality rates...
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This year’s smoking-ban bill is dead; Senate advocates have bill to make insurers provide all smoking cessation treatments
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News Despite early hope, the bill to ban smoking in Kentucky workplaces was likely dead on arrival this year. “I haven’t heard anything about the...
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Bill to make 21 legal age to buy tobacco products moves; one of several anti-tobacco bills from Rep. David Watkins, retired doctor
By Melissa Patrick Kentucky Health News A bill to raise the legal age to 21 to buy any tobacco or vaping products in Kentucky was approved Feb. 11 by the...
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Preliminary research finds a web-based reward program helps teens and pregnant smokers in Appalachia quit smoking
A new web-based program that uses a reward system to help people quit smoking has shown some promise in Appalachian Kentucky, an area that has some of the highest smoking...
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162,000 Ky. Medicaid members are slaves to tobacco, but only 17% of them use their smoking-cessation benefits
By Melissa Patrick and Al Cross Kentucky Health News Ten percent of Kentuckians on Medicaid are dependent on tobacco, but fewer than 2 percent — less than one in five...
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Appalachian smoking cessation studies suggest changes in tactics, such as being blunter with pregnant smokers
Two long-term smoking cessation projects in Appalachia have prompted researchers to change to a more direct approach with pregnant smokers, telling them the risks to their babies, and to look...
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KET’s Clearing the Smoke’ explores smoking issues in Kentucky; guests called for smoking ban, note concerns about teens
An old tobacco barn in Magoffin County, seen by thousands daily on the Mountain Parkway, has found a new purpose – to help peoplestop smoking. Tobacco barns It once advertised...