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Senior citizen group seeks recovery of Medicare expenses from U.S. cigarette makers

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Saturday, August 6, 2005

A U.S. lobbyist group, the United Seniors Association, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Boston to recover Medicare expenses related to tobacco smoking. The suit says there is a link between nicotine addiction and smoking-related diseases.

The first of its kind lawsuit seeks to recover as much as $60 billion in estimated Medicare expenses outlaid for treatment of lung cancer and emphysema patients.

The Medicare Secondary Payer Statute (MSP) allows someone to sue on behalf of Medicare. The medical expenses that another party was legally obligated to cover, in this case the tobacco companies if they are found liable in court, would be split between parties to the suit and Medicare. The MSP statute was entered in part because the government does not have the resources to prosecute every case under Medicare law.

Charles Jarvis, the CEO of the group said, "Our motivation is one of taxpayer protection." He added, "Considering how badly the taxpayers have been injured financially, we believe the responsible parties — the tobacco companies — should be reimbursing the taxpayer to the greatest amount possible under the law."

Currently, U.S. employees are taxed by Medicare at 1.45% of their earnings. This payroll tax amount is matched by their employer when paid to the IRS.

The lawsuit names Philip Morris USA, Lorillard Tobacco, the Liggett Group, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and two of its subsidiaries as defendants. The United Seniors Association is asking for twice the amount paid by Medicare to treat smoking related illnesses since 1999.

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article has been released into the public domain. In the event that this is not legally possible, this article may be used for any purpose, without any condition, unless such conditions are required by law. This applies worldwide. Copyright terms on images, however, may vary, so please check individual image pages prior to duplication.
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