Baltimore officials say they are backing off a plan to charge city employees who smoke more for their health insurance after union officials objected.
Howard Libit, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, said the administration agrees with the union's position that such a surcharge would need to be negotiated through the collective bargaining process.
"It is still something we believe in," Libit said of the surcharge. "The city is still going to move forward with smoking-cessation classes for employees. As we negotiate upcoming rounds of employee contracts and health care policies, this is something we intend to include with collective bargaining in the future."
Last month, city officials said they planned to save about $3 million a year by making changes to employee health care plans. The city planned to save $700,000 annually by denying coverage for erectile dysfunction drugs for retirees, and $2.3 million requiring tobacco users covered by city employee or retiree health plans to pay 50 percent more for their insurance.
The average charge would have been about $50 per month, Libit said.
Union leader Glenard S. Middleton Sr. said union officials were surprised by the changes. "We came in and objected to it," he said. "We told them we would be filing a lawsuit. They did the right thing and changed their minds."
Middleton said he agreed that city workers can get healthier. He suggested giving breaks for exercise or health awareness classes.
Libit said the lack of a surcharge in this year's budget would not affect city services or lead to cuts.
The attempted changes are the latest from a city government eager to cut health care costs.
In 2013, Baltimore officials dropped more than 1,600 spouses, children and others from city coverage after workers failed to fill out forms to prove they were eligible dependents. The move is saving Baltimore about $6.5 million a year, officials said.
Rawlings-Blake has been targeting health care expenses as one of several ways to cut a projected $750 million long-term budget deficit. She has said that nearly half of Baltimore's municipal employees and retirees have a "critical or chronic" illness — a distinction that contributes to the high cost of providing their health insurance.
The city also has modified health benefits to charge lower premiums but require higher co-payments. That move has saved the city more than $20 million a year, officials say.
Baltimore is among the jurisdictions across the country that are trying to make smokers pay more for health care. Under President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can charge smokers up to 50 percent more for health coverage. The city of Austin, Texas, applies such a surcharge, as does the state of Virginia. Some businesses, such as Wal-Mart, also apply such a charge.
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