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Workers are suing at least two employers, including 7-Eleven, over health plans that impose premium surcharges on enrollees who use tobacco.
The workers contend that the plans must use the surcharges as an incentive to change behavior and that the plans must offer well-promoted smoking cessation programs for enrollees who are trying to quit but have a hard time doing so.
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Otherwise, the anti-tobacco-use surcharges violate antidiscrimination provisions in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, the workers assert.
Barbara Baker is seeking class-action status for a tobacco surcharge suit she filed against 7-Eleven last week in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Chelsea Harrison Keesler is seeking class-action status for a similar suit she filed against Tractor Supply Co. last week in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania/.
The complaints were filed by different law firms.
Representatives for the plaintiffs, 7-Eleven and Tractor Supply, did not respond to emails.
The suits reflect a collision between Affordable Care Act major medical insurance pricing rules with federal antidiscrimination rules developed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The plaintiff in the 7-Eleven plan case had to pay tobacco surcharge of $720 per year. The plaintiff in the Tractor Supply case had pay a surcharge of $780 per year.
The plaintiffs have accused the defendants of failure to provide a reasonable alternative, a breach of ERISA fiduciary duty and a failure to provide required notices about tobacco surcharges.
The employer plans did not make their tobacco surcharges part of permissible wellness programs, because they did not give statutorily required notices of reasonable alternatives, according to thr complaint.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
