Posted on 02/11/2013 10:53:46 AM PST by stillafreemind
Jan. 1, 2014, will find the fat lady singing for my husband and me. That is when smokers will have to "cough up" extra money for their health insurance because of a provision of the Affordable Health Act. I am 60, which means that I will pay $5,000 extra. My husband at 54 will pay more than $4,000 extra each year. Mind you that this is on top of the insurance payments we already make.
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We have smokers in this family. If this kinda tax, er whatever they want to call it, happens..we too are going to be in deep do. Can they really do this?
For a while.
They only need to do it long enough to overwhelm the system.
Once they have succeeded in doing that, all they have to do is step back and wait until all the peasants have starved to death.
Insurance should be free to charge people more if they engage in risky behaviors but the government should have nothing to do with that.
Si se puede!
I want to know if the same increases will apply to pot smokers? Gee, all those new states just legalized pot, too. What a buzzkill.
I guess quitting and saving the 9 Thousand dollars is out of the question.......
Maybe a few smokers should file a law suite about the fact that you have been PAYING for years via a tax on cigarettees into a state and federal system that was supposed to help cover the cost of medical care for smokers. Taxed you once shame on you - tax me twice...you must be a democrat.
Or just hold out for a few years till you qualify for Medicare (which I suppose is designed to get us all hopping on the “Medicare For All” bandwagon)
They should have aded it to the cost of a pack. $20 a pack seems about right.
Grow your own and roll your own. Nobodies the wiser.
Just wait until the unintended consequences come into play, specifically when millions of people stop smoking because of the penalty and then state tobacco tax revenue dries up completely.
And then the Mexican drug cartels start dealing cigarettes.....You think the War on Drugs is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
We have noticed one thing about smokers that we know. The LAST thing they want to do is walk in to a doctors office. If you are not a smoker..you will never understand..if you are a smoker..nuff said.
My dad..after an excruciating round with cancer..finally “bothered” the medical establishment for pain killers eight days before he died. Too much spent on him? Do ya think his payments for health care probably covered the handful of pills and hospital bed for eight days?
Do I think smoking is good for ya? No. Do I think there are a heck of a lot of things that aren’t good for you out there? Yes. Why does it have to be smokers that get penalized? How about the dumb nuts that play football under the influence of who knows what? Will football players now have to pay higher premiums to the tune of thousands of dollars?
I don’t have a clue if I can stop. Why should I HAVE to stop smoking or be penalized for something that is TOTALLY legal to do?
I sincerely hope you are not calling me a democrat.
Not to mention inflated prices after the "Big Tobacco" go-zillion dollar lawsuit to offset the medical costs of tobacco use...
It's a tax. I have my doubts that the money will even go to healthcare.
Yeah, just get on some state-approved drug and they'll pay for it, right?
Sanctimonious twit.
They can do whatever they want. They took posession of our physical beings through Obamacare, so now they can dictate any behaviour they so chose.
As long as they target “evil smokers” even FReepers will celebrate!
“Sanctimonious twit.” Thank you.
“I guess quitting and saving the 9 Thousand dollars is out of the question......”
I suppose you will regurgitate the same bilge when they want to charge higher premiums for being of certain weights, you know, “why not just lose XX pounds and save 5 thousand dollars.”
Or when they want to charge higher premiums for not participating in physical exercise, “why not just exercise for 1 hour a day and save 5 thousand dollars.”
Or when they want to require federal home inspections to ensure that there are no leaky roofs or moldy cupboards, you know, “just allow federal inspectors in your house and save 5 thousand a year.”
Or when they want to charge a higher premium for having guns in the house, you know, “just give up the guns and save 5 thousand a year.”
This is what you support and if you don’t believe me, just use the search function for every one of these things being tied to making health care cheaper.
You don’t believe in rights, whether you want to spout it or not.
I discovered back in 2008 that Obama is one of those persons who people would be better off never listening to, and I never do listen to him speak, on or for any occasion.
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