According to US Government officials you're never to old to quit smoking, announcing that Medicare will immediately start covering the cost of counselling for certain beneficiaries who want to quit tobacco.
Mark McClellan, administrator for the Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services says the new smoking cessation program has the potential to save and improve lives for millions of seniors. Only those who have an illness caused by tobacco use or complicated by tobacco use will qualify for the new Medicare benefit.
Officials as yet do not have an estimate of how much the new program will cost or how many people will be eligible for it. The benefit will only cover counselling sessions and not the cost of nicotine patches and gum or products aimed at helping smokers quit. About 300,000 senior citizens die annually from smoking-related illnesses, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.