Posted on 01/24/2013 11:25:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Obama’s health-care law, according to experts who are teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.
The Affordable Care Act — or “Obamacare” — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1.
For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
I thought insurers were not allowed to charge more for people with pre-existing conditions.
Drug addicts will pay more? Fine by me.
the govt runs healthcare now... which means, they have to foot the bill... and will be looking for any way to cut expenses
like not allowing the elderly to have care or extended care. smokers will be another group. drinkers may come after that.
of course, no matter what... teachers and govt employees will have the finest care.
You really should brush up on your reading comprehension or maybe you just should post on topics of which you know nothing.
I seriously doubt any FReeper voted for Zero, so either you're full of it or don't know very many normal people.
When they came for the smokers, I didn’t protest, because I was not a smoker...
When they came for the drinkers, I didn’t protest, because I was not a drinker...
When they came for the overweight, I didn’t protest, because I was not overweight...
When they came for the gun owners, I didn’t protest, because I was not a gun owner...
...
now now play nice with the mentaly handicaped.... they need to learn sometime.
Don’t insurance companies require chemical tests? Hmm. Will the govt now be testing everyone for substances? Will it be mandatory to submit a vial or two? Will we have to do it every year...every six months?
If they got money back, they’d just blow it.
I would love to see a spread sheet on the taxes that smokers already pay and how much of that money actually was spent to offset health care costs.
I agree with the other poster that smokers die sooner and therefore the so called health care costs are much lower than say the obese and other chronic diseases caused by ‘life style’ choices. Don’t kid yourself folks...soon they will be coming after any and everything ‘they’ deem unhealthy. Got a gun in the house? Higher taxes and insurance costs. Fat? Higher costs and taxes. They are going to tax everything at a higher rate and soon no one will be able to afford insurance.
That’s actually not accurate, but it is neither your nor mine nor the government’s role to tell health insurers how much they can charge their customers.
Unless, oh, wait, smokers can get a subsidy from nonsmokers by keeping a cap on their permitted health insurance costs! Once again, Freepers come out in favor of any subsidy of which they are the beneficiaries.
If health insurers can’t charge based on their actual insurance costs, they really aren’t in the insurance business anymore, are they? They are puppets of an economically fascist government.
Ah but they will make it up on volume......;>)
Ha ha!
they could always quit.
I guess one could say the same thing when government decides to go after red meat or certain cuts of meat with high marbling content or deep fried dishes or movie theater type popcorn. Bloomberg chose large soda cups. Why not ban certain sizes of candy bars? How about requiring regular blood tests of citizens to measure their intake of government restricted food items.
I don’t smoke but it is alarming where this is going. Where will it end.
So you would tell health insurance companies that they can’t price their coverage for risk? That is government dictating our lives.
The cost shifting merry-go-round never stops, does it?
It’s not hard to comprehend. Nicotine addicts will be asked to pay more to cover the costs of the damage their addiction does to their bodies.
Next year is the year we get to hear every liberal bitch, moan, and complain because they just don’t understand why they have to pay for Obamacare TOO like the conservatives do. Gee Daddy Obama I thought we wasn’t going to have to pay too. I thought mine was going to be FREEEEEE....
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