It's no ones business if you prefer to smoke! Corbett's proposal to strip anti-tobacco funds concerns York-area health experts
Corbett's proposal to strip anti-tobacco funds concerns York-area health experts
Hundreds of York County residents are now tobacco-free because of free cessation programs offered at Memorial and Hanover hospitals.
And those programs are funded entirely through state grants made up of proceeds from a 1998 legal settlement with the major cigarette manufacturers, said tobacco cessation counselor Renata Tate of Memorial Hospital.
Gov. Tom Corbett has proposed an overhaul of how Pennsylvania state government uses some of the tobacco settlement money, diverting it to economic development projects.
That's a major concern for Tate, who said grant funding to provide tobacco cessation services to members of the community has already been cut dramatically since 2002.
For the last fiscal year, Memorial Hospital's tobacco settlement grant money was reduced 13 percent, Tate said.
That resulted in a cut to the hospital's tobacco education staff and the frequency of the programs offered, she said.
"We (at Memorial) will wait until Corbett's final decision, then evaluate how to move forward. If we need to pursue other funding sources or grants, we'd do that, but we don't make those decisions until the final word," said Tate.
Underfunded: The Tobacco Settlement Act mandated that annual tobacco settlement payments be used according to certain allotments, including 12 percent for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, according to the state's Department of the Auditor General.
However, in fiscal year 2011, tobacco programs across the state received only 5 percent of tobacco settlement funding, according to the department.
That means the funding dropped from a high of $50.5 million in fiscal year 2002-03 to a low of $14.7 million for fiscal year 2010-11.
Tobacco programs were funded as mandated until 2005, when Pennsylvania started its "redirections," state Auditor General Jack Wagner said in a report released earlier this month.
And now, under his new proposal, Corbett wants to shift the annual deposit of hundreds of millions of dollars in settlement money into the state's main bank account, rather than keep it as a separate fund for public health programs.
Pennsylvania still has 15 years of payments coming from the tobacco settlement fund -- about $370 million in the next fiscal year alone.
Corbett wants to shift about $220 million a year from those proceeds into an economic development program, the Liberty Loan Fund. The rest of the funds would help Corbett erase a projected multibillion-dollar deficit.
Still exist: The tobacco settlement funds will still exist; the proposal just moves the funds into the state's general fund, said spokeswoman Susan Hooper of the state's Office of the Budget.
Hooper said under next year's proposed budget, $14.1 million will be allotted from the general fund for tobacco cessation programs across the state.
She said the funds for next year are slightly less than last fiscal year because the tobacco settlement agreement payment the state will receive in April is expected to be slightly less than last year's payment.
"We will be using the same percentage to calculate the amount of funding for these programs as we did last year," she said.
Failing grades: But even before Corbett's proposal to redistribute the settlement funds, money used toward tobacco cessation has already been scarce over recent years, according to Wagner's report.
Wagner said tobacco program funding across the state is so meager that the American Lung Association in 2010 gave the state grades of "F" for tobacco prevention and for cessation efforts, saying, "Thumbs down to Pennsylvania for cutting state funding for its tobacco control program by close to 55 percent over the past two years."
Among the states, Pennsylvania was not alone in receiving failing grades. A total of 40 states received an F in tobacco prevention and 37 did so in cessation coverage.
The American Lung Association report cited major trends nationwide, including states continuing to turn to tobacco taxes to balance budgets and then failing to help smokers quit.
At Memorial: Memorial Hospital's tobacco cessation services provide various free programs, including inpatient intervention with counseling, a six-week Quit Class, one-on-one outpatient counseling and a nicotine support group, said Tate.
The services provide education to help York County residents develop a better understanding of tobacco use, strategies to overcome the tobacco addiction, information on cessation methods and ways to live a tobacco-free life, she said.
Nearly 2,600 people were enrolled in the tobacco education programs offered at Memorial Hospital last year, she said.
"Many participants said the programs changed their lives. If it wasn't for the tobacco programs, they wouldn't have been able to quit to play with their grandchildren, come off their oxygen. It's life-changing and impacts the people around them, as well," said Tate.
She noted that many tobacco education programs that are not free are offered to people.
And because Memorial is able to offer the programs free through the grant funding to community residents, it's a factor that helps tobacco-users take the step toward quitting, she said.
Programs continue: WellSpan Health's tobacco-free cessation programs are not funded through the tobacco settlement money, said spokesman Barry Sparks.
It's too early to tell how the redistribution of the settlement money will affect tobacco education across the state, said Tammy Kreiser, tobacco control program director of South Central Region American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic.
The American Lung Association is the state's primary contractor for tobacco settlement grant money distribution, she said.
"Until a decision is made, we are to keep moving forward with the tobacco programs," she said.
-- Reach Lauren Whetzel at 505-5432 or lwhetzel@yorkdispatch.com.
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