The Senate Health and Human Services Committee met on August 26 to consider ways to “expand and optimize” the state’s investment in wellness programs.

Front and center in the discussion: a statewide smoking ban in public places.

The tobacco industry was under full assault in the hearing, with individual legislators and advocates calling for the expansion of smoking cessation programs in the private and public sectors, on top of calls for the ban.

Opposition to the ban came from a single group that advocates limited government and free market capitalism.

Dr. David Lakey of the Department of State Health Services, called tobacco the single greatest cause of preventable death in the state each year.

He recommended smoke-free legislation and ordinances for public places, increased unit prices for tobacco products, a mass media education campaign, and other tobacco-suppressive measures.

Lakey and several others advocated a statewide smoking ban.

He cited a study saying that in 2001 no city had a smoke-free ordinance. But starting in 2002, an increasing percentage of communities — now 27 percent of the total state population — have decided on their own to become “smoke-free,” Lakey said.

“We know that tobacco prevention and cessation programs that are comprehensive and sustained over time result in long-term reductions in tobacco use among Texans, when we have a comprehensive approach, enforcement, clean air laws, and being able allow individuals that want to stop smoking the tools they need,” Lakey said.

But Peggy Venable, state director of the Texas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, told the committee that, while she is not a smoker or a tobacco industry advocate, she believes it may not be the government’s role to nanny its citizens.

“I think we’d all agree,” Venable said, “that we’d really like people to eat their recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables and cut back on red meat and exercise, and eliminate alcohol and tobacco and reduce stress and all these other things. But I come here saying that we don’t think it’s really the appropriate role of government to dictate our behavior.”

“We think individuals, not government, should dictate the marketplace,” Venable said. “We would like to see businesses who choose to be smoke-free proliferate and prosper, but businesses should have the opportunity to have either smoking or non-smoking or a combination.”

Venable’s written testimony said a statewide smoking ban would “violate property rights” and create a “significant decline in business.”

But Venable’s appeal for limited government is about was as good as it got for tobacco — or for limited government — at the hearing.

Kay Ghahremani, deputy director for Medicaid and CHIP policy development at the Health and Human Services Commission, said the commission was planning a tobacco cessation pilot program aimed at disabled children, who supposedly stand a greater chance of becoming addicted. The pilot will begin in October in Bexar County and will include three groups: one that will receive face-to-face group counseling, another to receive telephonic counseling, and a control group that will only fill out a survey.

Committee chairwoman Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville) was interested in the amount of advertising dollars tobacco companies spend each year to reach young people, and said that the state would have to expand its educational initiatives in order to be able to compete. “It is huge,” Lakey said.

“The focus needs to be on keeping young people from starting to begin with,” Nelson said. “It can be very, very difficult to get the person to quit. … What you’re up against is, whatever that dollar amount is that tobacco companies are spending to try to get new customers, because their current customers are going to die.”

Legislators including Sen. Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) and Nelson expressed interest in requiring tobacco companies to provide information about the ingredients on their products. Currently state law requires the companies to submit the ingredients to the Department of State Health Services. Nelson expressed interest in seeing the information herself.

Lakey said that about $3 million flowed through the Department of State Health Services to the Texas Education Agency to provide education on tobacco. Tobacco companies spend significantly more money, about $1 billion, on advertising, Lakey acknowledges.

“Workside Wellness”

The committee also looked at ways of encouraging “workside wellness,” in the interest of reducing the economic costs to the state of ailments like obesity and diabetes.

Raette Smith Hearne, director of administration at the Office of the Comptroller, spoke to the committee about the Comptroller’s employee wellness program, which was launched in March of last year, and “enjoys tremendous support from Comptroller [Susan] Combs.”

The program provides information to its employees about oriental medicine, acupuncture, breast cancer, nutrition, stress and hormones.

It also has a “stress relief room,” which provides chair massage therapy for a dollar a minute. The program offers yoga and Tai Chi. Employees are allowed to exercise during work hours up to three times a week.

Hearne said she hopes to get 20 percent of the Comptroller’s workforce to participate in the program.

Sen. Robert Deuell (R-Greenville) asked whether the program is translating into fewer work days missed. Hearne said the Comptroller’s office was in the process of compiling those figures. The office started with a budget of $5,000 for the program, but has kept it going through incentives for employees to participate, and through employee donations, Hearne said.

Deuell said despite his confidence in the program’s effectiveness, he believed that “We need to see the benefit to those of us who are stewards of the taxpayers.”

Nelson floated the idea of giving tax credits or insurance deductions to businesses that provide similar programs to their workers.

The committee also looked at different ways to encourage employees to participate in wellness programs offered by businesses.

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