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Should We Pay People to Quit Smoking?
By JLP | February 12, 2009
I saw this interesting story in today’s Wall Street Journal: More Smokers Quit if Paid, Study Shows
Snippets from the article:
Smokers who are paid to quit succeed far more often than those who get no cash reward, according to a new study that provides some of the strongest evidence yet that financial incentives can help change such behavior.
For the new study, researchers, led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, tracked 878 General Electric Co. employees from around the country for a year and a half in 2005 and 2006. Participants, who smoked an average of one pack of cigarettes a day, were divided into two groups of roughly equal size. All received information about smoking-cessation programs.
Members of one group also got as much as $750 in cash, with the payments spread out over time to encourage longer-term abstinence. Those participants got $100 for completing a smoking-cessation program, $250 if they stopped smoking within six months after enrolling in the study, and $400 for continuing to abstain from smoking for an additional six months.
Nothing is mentioned of the money saved from NO LONGER BUYING CIGARETTES. Isn’t that a financial incentive?
It bugs me that we have to pay people to do what they’re already supposed to do.
But, what do I know. My wife and I have a program where we essentially reward our boys for getting good grades (though they haven’t been rewarded in a while). Maybe I need to rethink our strategy.
Topics: Miscellaneous | 30 Comments »
February 12th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
But if they quit smoking they will not spend their money on the cigarettes to stimulate our economy and all the workers that produce them will go out of business unless the government adds tobacco farmers onto the stimulus! I think we should add another $50 billion stimulus for tobacco farmers
February 12th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I read about this a while ago, and my husband and I had the exact same discussion. I understand that they can lower overall health costs if they have fewer smokers, so it makes sense for the company to pay them, but what about me, the non-smoker? No one’s offering to pay me to continue not to smoke…doesn’t seem quite fair.
February 12th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Cheltzy,
Good point.
Incentives are used all the time to influence behavior. But, this just seems to be crossing a line. Kinda like paying kids to go to school.
February 12th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Pay non-smokers by taxing tobacco instead. Reward those that have avoided the problem rather than those that have caused it. This idea works for mortgage problems as well.
February 12th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
My employer, a large US corporation, paid all non-smokers $50 at the start of 2009. The line item read: tobacco cessation $50.00. No word yet on whether more payments will be doled out! However, the company continues to provide more and more statistics about the impact of smokers on the cost of our health care plans – leading many to think that one day smokers will be split off and have their own more costly plan.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
@JLP:
>>”It bugs me that we have to pay people to do what they’re already supposed to do. ”
please draw up a list do’s and don’ts so that I will know what I’m “supposed” to do.
personal liberties were a lot easier to protect before the government got in the way.
February 12th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Why should people that are smoking be given an incentive to stop? What about those that done smoke. Its similar to the current mortgage crisis, those that miss a payment can refinance but those that pay on time and are struggling….well keep struggling…..
February 12th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Hey Ted. Curious to know when you’re starting your own blog. Can’t wait to comment on your content…and increase your ad revenue…
Tiene cajones?
February 13th, 2009 at 3:13 am
I wonder if this will lead to paying overweight employees to stop eating junk food, as well? Think of the health insurance savings…
Jerry
February 13th, 2009 at 6:46 am
Should we have to? No, we shouldn’t have to. But there’s a pretty good argument that doing something like this can help everyone’s bottom line in the end, in the form of reduced healthcare costs, fewer liability lawsuits, etc. Smokers cost taxpayers and their companies/coworkers money, so some companies are just making a cost/benefit decision to try to help them kick the habit.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:12 am
You’ve convinced me. I’ve decided to take up smoking, so that I can quit and get paid.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I’ve heard of similar studies that show people lose weight more if there is a financial benefit. Maybe you won’t get as excited commenters rallying against that, since 50-75% of the country probably should lose weight.
I hate smoking as much as the next person, but I also hate the scorn for smokers that is so prevalent these days.
I do think if this is some sort of corporate sponsored thing, you have to reward the people who never smoked. It is only fair, even if it is much harder to stop smoking than it is to never start.
Personally, I would gladly hand over $1000 to any of my close family/friends if they would quit smoking. Luckily, I only have one loved one who smokes so I wouldn’t go broke on that promise.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
In reference to getting paid to do what we’re supposed to do: isn’t that what a scholarship does? Students who get good grades, are good at sports or do charity work get rewarded. So I guess you need to tell your kids that learning will be its own reward and that they can’t apply for scholarships. We wouldn’t want to reward them for going to school, learning and getting good grades, would we? That’s what they’re supposed to do, right?
February 13th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
No we shouldn’t have to, and don’t think that would solve anything. People will still smoke regardless and why should we pay for their habit.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Everyone has beat the smokign thing to death, so I thought I would comment on your incentivizing your kids. Give them the money up front: say $10 per A per class per 9-week period. Then, if they don’t make the A, you take away the money. The incentive has a stronger impact if they have the money in hand and you then take it away.
February 13th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Read the book “Nudge” – you’ll see there is more than one way to skin a cat – some of those ways work better than others.
February 14th, 2009 at 10:08 am
I’m in favor of one of the following:
Taxing cigarettes even more than now OR
Don’t let anyone that smokes get government insurance.
Smokers are costing this country. The money they spend on cigarettes could be spent on something to help their health and make them more productive.
February 14th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Can I get paid for not even starting smoking?
February 14th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Forget paying me not to smoke – why is there no rehab for smokers? You have rehab for everything else and smoking is more addictive than even hardcore drugs like heroin. I have been trying to quit for years and have made it for a year and a half once. It is so easy to fall back into it. There should be a serious rehab program and cigarettes should just become unavailable, that would go a long way to stopping smoking. Why are they still for sale everywhere?
February 14th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I’d happily pay my neighbors not to smoke. At least to walk a little farther from their porch so that smoke doesn’t float in through my windows.
At the same time, I doubt it’ll save money, at least not to the government. The employer is a bit different from the government: the employer only cares of your health care costs while you are working i.e. while employer spends more on treating smoking-related illnesses, the employer doesn’t care about the cumulative cost of health care in retirement. I.e. if someone dies at 60 instead of 80, the employer isn’t going to save money. But the government will.
“Don’t let anyone that smokes get government insurance. Smokers are costing this country. The money they spend on cigarettes could be spent on something to help their health and make them more productive.”
Taxes on cigarettes bring a lot of revenue. Plus, as I mentioned above, smokers die sooner and hence need less money in their old age. Yes, about smokers’ lifetime risk of getting lung cancer is 10% as opposed to 1% lifetime risk of non-smokers. Smokers also have higher risk of heart disease and some other cancers as well. But… Most of us get sicker when we get older. Treating dementia, arthritis, heart disease (2/3 of women, for example, get it eventually) and cancer – which is also prevalent in old age – is expensive as well. Even the costs of preventive drugs and tests needed by older people cost a lot more money than they save.
There was a Dutch study that compared lifetime health care costs of “healthy” people with that of not-so-healthy. It turned out that over the lifetime “healthy” end up costing more. Employer doesn’t care about lifetime costs, it only cares about costs up to certain age. Hence employers may save money on non-smokers. But the government isn’t going to.
February 15th, 2009 at 4:28 am
It is absolutley true, smokers are costing this country far too much. Heck, one smoker is about to rip off the U.S taxpayer for $787 billion on Tuesday.
February 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
nice zing, Andy.
We should also give murderers a check to not kill more people. I mean, they are a bigger drain on our society with the cost of attorneys, court system, jails, etc.
Everybody wants a check today, and it truly disgusts me.
February 15th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Andy – LOL, this is really funny.
I wouldn’t mind higher taxes on cigarettes. This is an easiest place to increase revenue and help pay for all the bailout bills. It would also be easy to pass.
Steve – I have several friends who used to be chain smokers and who quit successfully years ago. Most of them just quit cold turkey. One woman used a help of a hypnotist. One man had a sore throat for a month – so bad he couldn’t even think of a cigarette. After he recovered he told himself – if I managed without cigarettes for a month, I can do without them forever. He never smoked since. He believes just stopping it cold turkey is the only way. Now, I don’t know since I’ve never smoked, but this is what my friends who stopped successfully said.
February 16th, 2009 at 5:33 am
As someone who just quit smoking, this is crazy and probably wouldn’t work. From experience, I can truly say that if you aren’t READY to quit smoking, nothing will make you stop.
I just quit smoking a month ago but I am paying MYSELF as an added incentive.
http://www.singleguymoney.com/2009/02/quitting-smoking-one-month-later.html
February 16th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Its funny how they allowed this problem in the first place, and now they put the blame on us, forcing us to pay people to smoke, and there are quite a huge percentage of people as well that smoke.
February 16th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
I’m torn.
Do I think they should get paid to stop smoking? Nope.
But am I for paying them to quit if it would lower my health care cost? Yes.
And according to what Kitty said (which I’ve read before and was going to make a joke about), maybe it’s actually cheaper for everyone if the government paid people to smoke, and generally be unhealthy.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:21 pm
i think we should pay people who don’t smoke to start smoking…it would be an excellent way to control the worlds population if we could decrease life expectancy….the more smokers the better
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:42 pm
If we pay incentives for people to stop smoking, then for those who don’t smoke will start the habbit of smoking in order to get that incentives.
April 24th, 2009 at 11:15 am
When the smoker started smoking, no one forced him or incentivised him to do so. It was the person’s individual decision. Smoking is a nasty habit which not only makes the smoker suffer but people close to him as well. The smoker should have the maturity to understand this and quit voluntarily rather than being bribed to do so.
zeke
October 7th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
i did have a hard time Quitting Smoking but several months of discipline and the use of nicotine patches helped me a lot to stop smoking.