CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A funding gap for public retiree health care is prompting West Virginia lawmakers to consider raising tobacco taxes and capping retiree subsidies. A Senate bill introduced Monday also aims to ease concerns that prompted county school boards to sue unsuccessfully over retiree costs last year. The measure focuses on other post-employment benefits, or OPEB. West Virginia estimates it lacks nearly $7 billion of what it̵ ... Jump to full article >>

A controversial bill that would essentially snuff out North Dakota’s tobacco control and prevention efforts to fund the expansion of UND’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences goes before its first committee hearing today. Not only would HB 1353 take tobacco settlement funds set aside by voters in 2008 for an anti-tobacco program, it would also eliminate the entire section of state law that allows for an agency to manage those funds. Anti- ... Jump to full article >>

Eliminating an anti-smoking campaign targeting youth and free smoking cessation counseling would be “a step backwards for public health,” the University of Iowa’s public health dean said Tuesday. Dean Sue Curry, who has extensive research on tobacco, including motivation to quit smoking and health care costs associated with tobacco cessation, said Iowans will see a “reversal” in the recent progress by cutting resour ... Jump to full article >>

That ongoing message to smokers is being reinforced by the provincial government and many advocacy groups during National Non-Smoking Week. Saskatchewan has one of the highest smoking rates in the country. The Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey reported a smoking prevalence of 22.3 per cent in the province in 2009, compared with a national prevalence of 17.5 per cent. Even though some age groups among Saskatchewan residents are smoking at a ... Jump to full article >>

In mid-October, the Government of Alberta announced that they planned to sue Big Tobacco in order to recover the health-care costs associated with tobacco use. It has been a fairly common strategy in the war on tobacco. In the United States, a lawsuit by 46 state Attorneys General was finally settled in 1998, and the four largest tobacco companies are still paying more than $200 billion to the states that participated in the suit. It’s a t ... Jump to full article >>

Parliament has enacted a 245 percent increase in Kazakhstan’s minimal cigarette excise tax to try to get more smokers to kick the habit. The tax will jump 25 percent a year between 2011 and 2014 – from 20 percent a pack now to 49 percent in four years. The tax increase and other steps have led to Kazakhstan become the leader in anti-smoking efforts among former Soviet countries. Last year parliament took the bold step of banning smoking in p ... Jump to full article >>

An alliance of big tobacco groups and corner shop trade bodies is barraging ministers with claims that an upcoming ban on the display of cigarettes on store shelves will trigger an upsurge in illicit sales and organised crime, as well as pushing many legitimate small traders out of business. The desperate lobbying comes ahead of a ban on behind-the-counter displays of tobacco that is slated to come into force for supermarkets in October next yea ... Jump to full article >>

The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed with costs the leave-to-appeal applications of several tobacco manufacturers seeking to overturn key rulings of New Brunswick courts. Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Philip Morris International and other companies sought to overturn previous decisions of the New Brunswick Court of Appeal and the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench in the provincial government’s lawsu ... Jump to full article >>

Just before Thanksgiving 1998, John A. Boehner hit bottom. The Ohio congressman, once a comer in the Republican Party, was unceremoniously removed from his post in the House leadership. Boehner’s colleagues had a win-at-all-costs mind-set; he saw no point in antagonizing the Democratic minority just because he had the power to do so. That night, Boehner commiserated with his closest friends at Sam and Harry’s steakhouse in downtown ... Jump to full article >>

Thanks to the recession, demographic changes and advances in health care, the retirement landscape is shifting so fast that it is easy for today’s fiftysomethings to lose their footing. Clive Butler of Aviva, the pension group, said too many of them were still chasing an “unrealistic dream that is well past its sell-by date”. For people approaching retirement, now is the time to indulge in some serious crystal ball gazing. Las ... Jump to full article >>