A recent study found only 10 percent of Medicaid members who smoke — or 830,000 people — received medication to help them quit in 2013, according to NPR.
The study, published in the January issue of Health Affairs, found although the government pays $70 billion per year in Medicaid smoking-related health costs, it only spent $103 million on tobacco cessation medication in 2013.
The authors analyzed Medicaid smokers in every state and found treatment rates were lower in some states than others. For example, over 20 percent of Medicaid smokers in Massachusetts and Minnesota were receiving at least one prescription in 2013. But in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, less than 7 percent of smokers were getting medication.
"The states that are doing less are also the states that have higher rates of smoking," said Leighton Ku, PhD, study author and director for the Center for Health Policy Research at Washington, D.C.-based George Washington University.
The study also found states that expanded Medicaid were almost twice as likely to help their Medicaid members receive smoking cessation medication.
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