The decision has broad support among health care providers and patient advocates, although some groups pushed for more extensive coverage, including for nicotine-replacement programs and some prescription drugs

Medicare beneficiaries who smoke and have smoking-related diseases or take certain medicines will be eligible for Medicare-covered counseling when the proposal takes effect next year. Medicare chief Mark McClellan said coverage would begin no later than the end of March.

카지노사이트 taking 440,000 lives a year, according to government estimates. Roughly 300,000 of those deaths occur among people 65 and older.

Tobacco use costs Medicare $14 billion a year.

Over 10 years, about 187,000 people would quit because of the counseling, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The program would cost Medicare just over $10 million a year, but savings in reduced health care costs would be greater than the cost over 10 years, the anti-smoking group said.