Thread: Anybody see on yahoo where smokers will be charged three times as much for health insurance?

I went and found it, I think it is to high what they are talking about doing. I do know life insurance is higher for a smoker than a nonsmoker.
Glad I quit over of 20 years ago. Now if only my husband could stop. He has tried several times without success.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...0%94-literally

Under ObamaCare, It’s Quit Smoking or Pay the Price — Literally

Smokers who thought they were getting a sweet deal from ObamaCare may want to think twice before lighting up again. According to the Associated Press, one of the many well-concealed provisions of the bill that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Congress had to pass “so that you can find out what’s in it” could make health insurance cost up to 50 percent more for Americans with cigarette habits — especially longstanding ones.

The law, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was — as its name implies — ostensibly designed to make health insurance affordable to Americans. It prohibits insurers from turning down or charging more to individuals with pre-existing conditions and even certain conditions (such as obesity) that increase the risk of health problems.

However, the one condition that the law does not protect from high insurance rates is nicotine addiction — despite the fact that smoking is associated with a number of serious health problems including heart disease and lung cancer. In fact, it specifically permits insurers to charge higher rates to older smokers than to nonsmokers or even younger smokers. Under the law, older adults in general may be charged up to triple what younger ones are charged (which could end up harming the young by hiking their rates). Smokers may, in addition, be charged up to 50 percent more than nonsmokers for their coverage, but younger smokers may be hit with a lesser penalty than older ones. Plus, the subsidies the government provides to offset the cost of insurance purchased on the individual market cannot be applied to the smoking penalty.

Just how expensive could insurance for older smokers become under ObamaCare? The AP ran the numbers:
Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama’s law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can’t be used to offset the penalty, the smoker’s total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That’s considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

“The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance,” said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.
These rules apply only to those buying insurance on the individual market. Those obtaining coverage through their employers can escape the penalty “by joining smoking cessation programs,” says the AP. There is no way to avoid the potential for the penalty altogether, which should not be surprising since the law practically demands that everyone kick the habit or be subjected to “behavior modification.”

In so decreeing, the federal government took on no small task. About 20 percent of American adults smoke. “That share,” writes the AP, “is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don’t come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law.”

With insurers already being forced to accept individuals with pre-existing conditions at (presumably) below-market rates, they will have a strong incentive to price out of the market anyone else who might prove costly.

“If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don’t want in your pool, the ones you really don’t want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years,” Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the Kaiser Family Foundation, told the AP. “You would have the flexibility to discourage them.”

Making their insurance cost significantly more would certainly be a discouragement. But would insurers really charge the full 50-percent penalty?

“If you don’t charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers,” consultant and former health-insurance executive Robert Laszewski told the AP. “They are going to have to play defense.”

States are permitted to limit or change the penalty, but doing so is only likely to exacerbate the problem of forcing insurers to accept high-risk individuals at the same rates as low-risk ones. The smoking penalty at least helps mitigate that to some degree, though insurers may well use it to recoup the cost of treating others paying below-market premiums, unfairly burdening smokers.

In a free market, of course, insurers would have the option of turning down individuals who might prove costly or of charging them rates commensurate with their risks. The United States has not had such a market for decades; state and federal mandates have already grossly distorted the insurance market. ObamaCare only piles on more mandates, distorting it even further and making insurance even less affordable.

Then again, as Ron Paul likes to say, the name of a bill is usually “exactly the opposite of what the bill does.” Who, then, can really be surprised that the Affordable Care Act fails to live up to its moniker?

This what happens when you pass something without reading it ... who knows what other "surprises" lay in wait for us

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

Penalty could keep smokers out of health overhaul
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | Associated Press – Thu, Jan 24, 2013.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation.

The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — 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. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums.

Younger smokers could be charged lower penalties under rules proposed last fall by the Obama administration. But older smokers could face a heavy hit on their household budgets at a time in life when smoking-related illnesses tend to emerge.

Workers covered on the job would be able to avoid tobacco penalties by joining smoking cessation programs, because employer plans operate under different rules. But experts say that option is not guaranteed to smokers trying to purchase coverage individually.

Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people, who also are more likely to work in jobs that don't come with health insurance and would therefore depend on the new federal health care law. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart disease, lung problems and cancer, contributing to nearly 450,000 deaths a year.

Insurers won't be allowed to charge more under the overhaul for people who are overweight, or have a health condition like a bad back or a heart that skips beats — but they can charge more if a person smokes.

Starting next Jan. 1, the federal health care law will make it possible for people who can't get coverage now to buy private policies, providing tax credits to keep the premiums affordable. Although the law prohibits insurance companies from turning away the sick, the penalties for smokers could have the same effect in many cases, keeping out potentially costly patients.

"We don't want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage," said California state Assemblyman Richard Pan, who is working on a law in his state that would limit insurers' ability to charge smokers more. The federal law allows states to limit or change the smoking penalty. "We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment," added Pan, a pediatrician who represents the Sacramento area.

Obama administration officials declined to be interviewed for this article, but a former consumer protection regulator for the government is raising questions. "If you are an insurer and there is a group of smokers you don't want in your pool, the ones you really don't want are the ones who have been smoking for 20 or 30 years," said Karen Pollitz, an expert on individual health insurance markets with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "You would have the flexibility to discourage them."

Several provisions in the federal health care law work together to leave older smokers with a bleak set of financial options, said Pollitz, formerly deputy director of the Office of Consumer Support in the federal Health and Human Services Department.

First, the law allows insurers to charge older adults up to three times as much as their youngest customers.

Second, the law allows insurers to levy the full 50 percent penalty on older smokers while charging less to younger ones.

And finally, government tax credits that will be available to help pay premiums cannot be used to offset the cost of penalties for smokers.

Here's how the math would work:

Take a hypothetical 60-year-old smoker making $35,000 a year. Estimated premiums for coverage in the new private health insurance markets under Obama's law would total $10,172. That person would be eligible for a tax credit that brings the cost down to $3,325.

But the smoking penalty could add $5,086 to the cost. And since federal tax credits can't be used to offset the penalty, the smoker's total cost for health insurance would be $8,411, or 24 percent of income. That's considered unaffordable under the federal law. The numbers were estimated using the online Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator.

"The effect of the smoking (penalty) allowed under the law would be that lower-income smokers could not afford health insurance," said Richard Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions, a nonpartisan research group that called attention to the issue with a study about the potential impact in California.

In today's world, insurers can simply turn down a smoker. Under Obama's overhaul, would they actually charge the full 50 percent? After all, workplace anti-smoking programs that use penalties usually charge far less, maybe $75 or $100 a month.

Robert Laszewski, a consultant who previously worked in the insurance industry, says there's a good reason to charge the maximum.

"If you don't charge the 50 percent, your competitor is going to do it, and you are going to get a disproportionate share of the less-healthy older smokers," said Laszewski. "They are going to have to play defense."

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Online: Kaiser Health Reform Subsidy Calculator — http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

http://news.yahoo.com/penalty-could-...205840155.html

http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-inf...-plan-all.html

Isn't this socialist just the greatest thing to be sitting in the Oval Office.?

It will come right out of the Social Security check, just like Medicare does.