Smokers hit hard under Obamacare Bill

**jagbender** · 01-25-2013, 08:41 AM

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."
___

**Standard Donkey** · 01-25-2013, 08:43 AM

well i think the whole obamacare "law" is bullshit.. but fuck smokers

buttfuck smokers

edit: im sure that if they aren't charged more... the cost would be passed on to be taken up as a burden by everyone else.. like fatties

since we becoming more of a socialist country

**bio-chem** · 01-25-2013, 09:13 AM

Well I sure as shit don't want to pay for smokers, but I also don't like the government being involved in destroying an industry. (Tobacco) I guess best would be the government gets out of healthcare, but since that won't happen we are all fucked royally.

**Zaphod** · 01-25-2013, 09:18 AM

Once they destroy tobacco they will have to find something else to tax the fuck out of to make up for the lost revenue.

**Standard Donkey** · 01-25-2013, 09:19 AM

am i the only one who thinks the obama care law still isnt going to work at all? because of the states being like...broke and shit?

**IronAddict** · 01-25-2013, 09:24 AM

Absolute BS! And these guy's want to ban assault rifles or their magazines!?

Why don't you start by banning that evil, silent deadly plant, I believe there are more tobacco deaths than gun deaths. And a lot of those deaths are suicides, kinda the samething don't ya think.

**bio-chem** · 01-25-2013, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by Standard Donkey

am i the only one who thinks the obama care law still isnt going to work at all? because of the states being like...broke and shit?

Stop using the part of your brain wired to reason and logic while thinking of Obama. It's what everyone else did when they voted, and they are much happier people than the rest of us.

**Swiper** · 01-25-2013, 02:41 PM

wtf? Obama told the nation our premiums won't go up and will actually go down $2500 per year under obamacare? I'm stunned! ha

**DOMS** · 01-25-2013, 02:42 PM

Originally Posted by Standard Donkey

am i the only one who thinks the obama care law still isnt going to work at all? because of the states being like...broke and shit?

No, no, no... Spending hundreds of billions - possibly over a trillion -- is going to save us money!

As matter of fact, I'm going to save money now and go get a new car.

**LAM** · 01-25-2013, 02:44 PM

Originally Posted by bio-chem

Stop using the part of your brain wired to reason and logic while thinking of Obama. It's what everyone else did when they voted, and they are much happier people than the rest of us.

yes and Mitt Romney promising to deregulate finance and Paul Ryan's reverse robin hood budget "surely" would have turned things around for the better! LMAO...supply-side economics on steroids and GH, it's worked so well these past 30 years.

**jay_steel** · 01-25-2013, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by Standard Donkey

am i the only one who thinks the obama care law still isnt going to work at all? because of the states being like...broke and shit?

There just going to find a way to raise the cost of medical for those that can afford it to supplement the bottom feeders. My brother has a small business so he has to pay for his own medical now at 900$ a month when he makes no more than 50k a year and its not going to change for him which is bullshit. All what this shit is to me is a way for the gov't to convince the sheep of America to pay higher tax rates so they can continue to fuck us over with more tax money and continue to keep lining their wallets with money.

**theCaptn'** · 01-25-2013, 05:25 PM

$900/month for health insurance? Jesus that's a rort.

**Zaphod** · 01-25-2013, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by jay_steel

There just going to find a way to raise the cost of medical for those that can afford it to supplement the bottom feeders. My brother has a small business so he has to pay for his own medical now at 900$ a month when he makes no more than 50k a year and its not going to change for him which is bullshit. All what this shit is to me is a way for the gov't to convince the sheep of America to pay higher tax rates so they can continue to fuck us over with more tax money and continue to keep lining their wallets with money.

Healthcare costs started shooting way up when it became profit-driven.

**Swiper** · 01-26-2013, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Zaphod

Healthcare costs started shooting way up when it became profit-driven.

all the govt regulations more like it

**charley** · 01-26-2013, 10:56 AM

When are we going to stop pretending that 'smoking cigs' ain't killing us.......cigarettes & alcohol = full emergency rooms....

**Bowden** · 01-26-2013, 11:04 AM

The U.S. health care costs associated with smoking are estimated at around 193 billion.
If people want to smoke fine, but if they do then they get to pay all of the increased insurance and health care costs associated with their addiction.
And yeah that includes a 50% markup on their health insurance premiums.

**Little Wing** · 01-26-2013, 12:02 PM

compare that additional charge to what end of life care is for a smoker for the last 5 years of their lives. fuck them. they should do the same to fat people.

**maniclion** · 01-26-2013, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by IronAddict

Absolute BS! And these guy's want to ban assault rifles or their magazines!?

Why don't you start by banning that evil, silent deadly plant, I believe there are more tobacco deaths than gun deaths. And a lot of those deaths are suicides, kinda the samething don't ya think.

Banned Wagon in full effect, yee haw ya'll jump on that banned wagon. Stop banning shit and just put a tax on it, let the people decide if it's worth the money to have or not, just stop taking all of our freedoms under the guise of "for your own good, and the good of the country".

**Swiper** · 01-26-2013, 08:44 PM

Originally Posted by LAM

yes and Mitt Romney promising to deregulate finance and Paul Ryan's reverse robin hood budget "surely" would have turned things around for the better! LMAO...supply-side economics on steroids and GH, it's worked so well these past 30 years.

so what do u think of Keynesian economics?

And since you adore Krugman you must be on board with the trillion dollar coin, uh?

**Dale Mabry** · 01-27-2013, 06:51 AM

Originally Posted by Standard Donkey

am i the only one who thinks the obama care law still isnt going to work at all? because of the states being like...broke and shit?

It's not going to work, but not because the states are broke. No matter which way you cut it or how much money the states take in, allowing a people to sit for 90% of the day and eat whatever they want ad libitum will never lead to a sustainable healthcare system given the fact that 80% of our healthcare dollars are spent on diseases related to lifestyle (Epithelial cancers (Colon, breast, lung), diabetes, heart disease). These people like to point out that they paid in to the system so it is their money. However, they put in 5 figures over their lifetime at most and end up taking millions of dollars out of it. I think universal healthcare or a gov't option would work, but only if there are sharp increases in what people pay in based off personal behavior such as smoking, drinking, etc. You couldn't monitor this stuff very well because people will lie, which is why you have to tax those behaviors directly to get people to either quit or to generate funds to pay for their healthcare. The beverage and snack food industries will never allow that. FYI, I drink beer and vape pot and am perfectly fine with paying exponentially more money as a result of those activities. However, .gov would just end up raiding those funds to pay for wars or corporate welfare or some unrelated shit so it wouldn't work anyway.

**Big Smoothy** · 01-27-2013, 08:22 AM

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.

Smokers cost a lot. In the 90s, they cost 12 times more than welfare. Fuck them.

You wanna smoke, I don't care. But fucking pay for it yourself.

**LAM** · 01-27-2013, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by Swiper

so what do u think of Keynesian economics?

keynesian economic principles have their place in modern day consumption based economy's. these principles have been used under EVERY SINGLE administration since the 1900's.

infrastructure projects are based on keynesian economic principles

do you know what increased military spending is? keynesian economics at work. name one GOP POTUS that hasn't done this in the past 50 years?

decreased government spending in economic downturns when the private sector and working class have reduce consumption levels is nothing more than fodder for those that don't understand economics in a consumption based economy with extreme income inequality.

**LAM** · 01-27-2013, 01:48 PM

actually there are two, and that was Nixon and GHWB...but what did both Reagan and GWB do to military spending?

don't remember you guys on the far right bitching about keynesian economics then? or maybe it's because you don't really understand it...

A Historical Perspective on Defense Budgets | Center for American Progress

**maniclion** · 01-27-2013, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by Dale Mabry

It's not going to work, but not because the states are broke. No matter which way you cut it or how much money the states take in, allowing a people to sit for 90% of the day and eat whatever they want ad libitum will never lead to a sustainable healthcare system given the fact that 80% of our healthcare dollars are spent on diseases related to lifestyle (Epithelial cancers (Colon, breast, lung), diabetes, heart disease). These people like to point out that they paid in to the system so it is their money. However, they put in 5 figures over their lifetime at most and end up taking millions of dollars out of it. I think universal healthcare or a gov't option would work, but only if there are sharp increases in what people pay in based off personal behavior such as smoking, drinking, etc. You couldn't monitor this stuff very well because people will lie, which is why you have to tax those behaviors directly to get people to either quit or to generate funds to pay for their healthcare. The beverage and snack food industries will never allow that. FYI, I drink beer and vape pot and am perfectly fine with paying exponentially more money as a result of those activities. However, .gov would just end up raiding those funds to pay for wars or corporate welfare or some unrelated shit so it wouldn't work anyway.

Exactly tax it all, put it in a fund called the Piggy Bank. You eat like a pig it goes in the Piggy Bank, you spend porkishly on beer, cigarettes, etc. it goes in the Piggy Bank. Oh but what about illegal drug users how do they pay for their burden on the system, legalize and tax it.

For obese people Put exercise bikes in their home with a monitor, every month money is transfered out of their account and if they pedal at least 30 minutes a day the monitor transfers a few dollars for every minute spent on it at a certain RPM. That RPM climbs a little each month until they can maintain it for 30 minutes nonstop like a healthy human being.

**Big Pimpin** · 01-28-2013, 12:34 PM

When you make stupid decisions, your automotive insurance company has the right to ass rape you and I think medical insurance companies should be able to do the same.

**Swiper** · 01-30-2013, 01:03 PM

Medical Excise Tax on Retail Receipts Show How We?re Screwed by Obamacare

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 30, 2013

An Infowars reader sent along an image of a sales receipt from Cabela?s, a popular sporting goods store.
The receipt (pictured at left) spells out what Obama and the feds want to keep secret ? the middle class is being heavily taxed despite all the fatuous rhetoric of Democrats who invariably play the class warfare card to sell their confiscatory taxation policies.
?The 2.3% Medical Excise Tax that began on January 1st is supposed to be ?hidden? from the consumer, but it?s been brought to the public?s attention by hunting and fishing store Cabela?s who have refused to hide it and are showing it as a separate line item tax on their receipts,? the email states.
CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and other apologists for government theft naturally don?t expose the heavy dose of taxes hidden in Obamacare.
One especially egregious tax as of January 1 is levied on people who use things like corrective lenses or hearing aids. Democrats need these kind of taxes to pay for their ?free? healthcare scam. If you wear glasses, get ready to pay an additional 2.3 percent.
?Obamacare is very, very expensive,? writes Peter Roff. ?More expensive than advertised in fact. To put it simply, Congress needed the money they expected the tax to generate to pay for the program. Which just goes to show there?s no such thing as ?free? healthcare.?
In 2013, the ?rich? ? read: well-off people not well-off enough to be able to hide money offshore or in ?philanthropic? foundations ? will get reamed. In addition to capital gains tax rates rising (from 15% to 18.8%), there ?will be an additional 0.9% tax on earned income in excess of $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals to help pay for Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays, nursing facilities, and hospice care,? Alex Rogers writes for Time.
?Taxpayers are reminded that the president?s healthcare law is one of the largest tax increases in American history,? Newsmax reported last June. ?Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses.?
Many of the taxes buried in the massive bill include excise taxes on charitable hospitals, taxes on innovator drug companies, new taxes on Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and other taxes that will of course be passed on to beleaguered consumers. Many of the taxes in the bill have nothing to do with healthcare. For instance, taxes on bio-fuel and tanning services.
In 2014, anyone not buying ?qualifying? health insurance ? that is to say, not buying insurance from mega-corporations who cut a deal with the feds to fleece the average American ? must pay an income surtax.
Employers with more than 50 employees who do not conform to the Obamacare mandate will be obliged at gunpoint to pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for each full-time employee. If employees participate in so-called insurance exchanges run by the government, the penalty for the employer jumps to $3,000 per employee.
Also in 2014, those of us who have ?Cadillac? health insurance plans ? plans that cost more than $27,500 per family ? will face a withering 40 percent excise tax.
Obama?s plan ? crafted by insurance corporations ? promises to subsidize around 30 million uninsured Americans, a bill that will amount to a staggering $1.8 trillion, much of it hidden beneath the surface or sold as the government forcing greedy rich people to pay ?their fair share.?
Cabela?s is doing us a service by adding a medical excise tax line on its retail receipts. More retailers and service companies need to get on the bandwagon and do this. It will remind Americans that they are being screwed ? not by rapacious fat cat corporations, but the federal government.
http://www.infowars.com/medical-excise-tax-on-retail-receipts-show-how-were-screwed-by-obamacare/

**jay_steel** · 01-30-2013, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by charley

When are we going to stop pretending that 'smoking cigs' ain't killing us.......cigarettes & alcohol = full emergency rooms....

thats the real issues with America right there. We are the drunkest country, which causes our crime rate to be insane. We glamerize partying, bendge drinking, and living unhealthy.

**jay_steel** · 01-30-2013, 01:20 PM

shit they should tax people who are legally obese, smokers, and drinkers. Its the healthy people who never have to go to the dr who is getting fucked. I see the dr only if I am injured and maybe get sick once every shit last time i got sick that was not food poisioning and other then a runny noise was back in jr high all most 15 years ago.

**jagbender** · 01-30-2013, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by jay_steel

thats the real issues with America right there. We are the drunkest country, which causes our crime rate to be insane. We glamerize partying, bendge drinking, and living unhealthy.

**Dale Mabry** · 01-30-2013, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Swiper

Medical Excise Tax on Retail Receipts Show How We?re Screwed by Obamacare

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 30, 2013

An Infowars reader sent along an image of a sales receipt from Cabela?s, a popular sporting goods store.
The receipt (pictured at left) spells out what Obama and the feds want to keep secret ? the middle class is being heavily taxed despite all the fatuous rhetoric of Democrats who invariably play the class warfare card to sell their confiscatory taxation policies.
?The 2.3% Medical Excise Tax that began on January 1st is supposed to be ?hidden? from the consumer, but it?s been brought to the public?s attention by hunting and fishing store Cabela?s who have refused to hide it and are showing it as a separate line item tax on their receipts,? the email states.
CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and other apologists for government theft naturally don?t expose the heavy dose of taxes hidden in Obamacare.
One especially egregious tax as of January 1 is levied on people who use things like corrective lenses or hearing aids. Democrats need these kind of taxes to pay for their ?free? healthcare scam. If you wear glasses, get ready to pay an additional 2.3 percent.
?Obamacare is very, very expensive,? writes Peter Roff. ?More expensive than advertised in fact. To put it simply, Congress needed the money they expected the tax to generate to pay for the program. Which just goes to show there?s no such thing as ?free? healthcare.?
In 2013, the ?rich? ? read: well-off people not well-off enough to be able to hide money offshore or in ?philanthropic? foundations ? will get reamed. In addition to capital gains tax rates rising (from 15% to 18.8%), there ?will be an additional 0.9% tax on earned income in excess of $250,000 for families and $200,000 for individuals to help pay for Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays, nursing facilities, and hospice care,? Alex Rogers writes for Time.
?Taxpayers are reminded that the president?s healthcare law is one of the largest tax increases in American history,? Newsmax reported last June. ?Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses.?
Many of the taxes buried in the massive bill include excise taxes on charitable hospitals, taxes on innovator drug companies, new taxes on Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and other taxes that will of course be passed on to beleaguered consumers. Many of the taxes in the bill have nothing to do with healthcare. For instance, taxes on bio-fuel and tanning services.
In 2014, anyone not buying ?qualifying? health insurance ? that is to say, not buying insurance from mega-corporations who cut a deal with the feds to fleece the average American ? must pay an income surtax.
Employers with more than 50 employees who do not conform to the Obamacare mandate will be obliged at gunpoint to pay an additional non-deductible tax of $2,000 for each full-time employee. If employees participate in so-called insurance exchanges run by the government, the penalty for the employer jumps to $3,000 per employee.
Also in 2014, those of us who have ?Cadillac? health insurance plans ? plans that cost more than $27,500 per family ? will face a withering 40 percent excise tax.
Obama?s plan ? crafted by insurance corporations ? promises to subsidize around 30 million uninsured Americans, a bill that will amount to a staggering $1.8 trillion, much of it hidden beneath the surface or sold as the government forcing greedy rich people to pay ?their fair share.?
Cabela?s is doing us a service by adding a medical excise tax line on its retail receipts. More retailers and service companies need to get on the bandwagon and do this. It will remind Americans that they are being screwed ? not by rapacious fat cat corporations, but the federal government.
http://www.infowars.com/medical-excise-tax-on-retail-receipts-show-how-were-screwed-by-obamacare/

This tax is supposed to tax the merchant, not the consumer. The error is that Cabela's made you aware that they were passing the cost on to you, not that .gov is imposing a sales tax on consumers. They should have just incorporated the tax in to the retail price but instead let you know directly that they raised the price to cover this tax. In other words, the government thought businesses should take this hit and they are choosing not to by making you take it.

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