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Health insurers want you to keep smoking, Harvard doctors say 

Why is it a big deal? "If you own a billion dollars [of tobacco stock], then you don't want to see it go down," says Himmelstein, "You are less likely to join anti-tobacco coalitions, endorse anti-tobacco legislation, basically, anything most health companies would want to participate in."

The letter is the third report that the doctors--who all support a national health care program--have published in the last 14 years.

We decided to check in with some of the insurance companies mentioned in the letter to learn more about their policies with respect to tobacco stock. Prudential was unable to respond by press time. Sun Life, however, flatly denied the charges.

"Sun Life does not carry significant holdings in tobacco stocks," says representative Steve Kee, . . .

Himmelstein rechecked his numbers in the Osiris database, and said, "I fear that if Sun Life has a dispute, it is with Osiris not with us."

In any event, the doctors' persistence over the years seems to be working to some extent. They targeted MetLife and Cigna in their 1995 and 2000 letters to medical journals, but neither is listed in the latest reckoning

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