Daily Doc: TI, Nov 22, 1989: TI target: the insurance industry
Daily Doc: TI target: the insurance industry
Title: Anti-Smoking Practices of the Insurance Industry
TI, Nov 22, 1989
Bates #: TIMN0034730/4731
March 6, 2000
The tobacco industry became very concerned when the insurance industry started offering non-smoker discounts in the 1980s. Lower insurance rates for non-smokers gave employers an incentive to voluntarily ban smoking from their workplaces. Such bans gave individual employees more incentive to quit. This was good news-- for everyone but the cigarette industry. The Tobacco Institute felt that it had to do something "to combat" these lowered rates.
This memo reveals a far-reaching plot by Big Tobacco against the insurance industry to eliminate non-smoker discounts, complete with the formation of (yet another) front group. This time it's a "consumer rights" group, headed by a "key 'consumer rights' nemesis of the insurance industry,' who, according to the memo "demands no less than $5,000 a month" for his services to the tobacco industry. The purpose of this fake "consumer group" was to focus broadly on "discriminatory practices of the insurance industry" and had the goal of eliminating non-smoker discounts. [Notice how similar this is to the strategy the industry uses with secondhand smoke--"broadening" the focus of the issue deflects attention from themselves and their products. They took the focus off the health consequences of secondhand smoke by "broadening" the issue into being one of building ventilation instead of cigarettes...see the pattern here?].
But the handwritten note in the upper right corner of the memo from one of the recipients to the other is key. More than anything else, it indicates the Tobacco Institute's nefarious intent:
"Susan - Interesting. Might work if we could wrap smoker discrimination into a package of other credible forms of discrimination. Industry will not take this attack lightly and will fight back fiercely. We would have to have a strong attack and a good defense.."
CITATION
Title: Anti-Smoking Practices of the Insurance Industry
Type of Document: Confidential memo
Author: John Lyons, Tobacco Institute
Recipient(s): Susan Stuntz and Martin J. Gleason, Tobacco Institute
Date: 19891122
Page Count: 2
Site: Tobacco Institute: http://www.tobaccoinstitute.com/
Bates No. TIMN0034730/4731
URL: http://www.tobaccoinstitute.com/getallimg.asp?DOCID=TIMN0034730/4731
QUOTES
More and more corporations are voluntarily adopting policies banning or severely restricting smoking in their workplaces. Many employers believe stringent smoking policies will reduce their health care costs, any many insurance companies are fueling this "conventional wisdom" by marketing anti-smoking incentives, such as nonsmoker discounts on group health insurance policies.
Several months ago, I asked Peter Sparber to assess the prevalence of anti-smoking practices by the insurance industry and to consider ways The Institute might combat them....
...Attached are two memoranda Peter prepared at my request. The first proposes a program to discourage the anti-smoking practices of the insurance industry by raising executives', regulators' and legislators' awareness of the discriminatory nature of nonsmoker discounts. John Ingram, once a key "consumer rights" nemesis of the insurance industry, would be the lynchpin of the program. Ingram would create a consumer rights group on behalf of which he would speak and publish to expose and eliminate the insurance industry's most common discriminatory practices....
...Ultimately [Sparber's proposal] is designed to eliminate one of the perceived incentives -- lower insurance costs -- for adopting a voluntary [smoking] ban.
At the same time, the proposal is expensive. Ingram demands no less than $5,000 per month for six months plus expenses, and Sparber....$3,000 per month.
...I recommend that The Institute fund the program on a six-month trial basis...
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