Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.
The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.
A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.
Nearly one in every five U.S. adults smokes, with a higher number of low-income people addicted to the unhealthy habit. Even though smokers are more likely to develop heart disease, cancer and lung problems and would therefore require more health care, the penalties might devastate those who need help the most – including retirees, older Americans, and low-income individuals.
“We don’t want to create barriers for people to get health care coverage,” California state Assemblyman Richard Pan told AP. “We want people who are smoking to get smoking cessation treatment.”
Nearly 450,000 US residents die of smoking-related diseases each year, making the unhealthy habit a serious concern for lawmakers. One legislator is trying to criminalize smoking in his state, while others have raised taxes on cigarettes and the Obama administration has tried to inflict hefty fines upon smokers’ premiums.
Karen Pollitz, a former consumer protection regular, told AP that no insurers want to provide coverage for Americans who have been smoking for decades, and that the penalties might prompt people to abandon the habit.
“You would have the flexibility to discourage them,” she told AP.
But quitting is not easy, and charging older smokers up to three times as much as younger ones could make it difficult for them to seek care in the first place. A 60-year-old smoker charged with the penalty could be paying about $8,411 per year for health insurance, which is about 24 percent of a $35,000 income and is considered “unaffordable” under federal law.
“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.
Ultimately, the law that is meant to make health care more affordable could have the opposite effect on older smokers at a time when smoking-related illnesses usually arise.
Doesn’t Barry smoke?Everytime I see a photo of that snot-nosed tyrant he’s smoking on a cigarette.I knew there was a better reason to abstain from that foolishness than simple matters of health.For such reasons I gave up on paying taxes,realizing that death really was certain and the latter a matter of choice rather than principle.Although I still smoke I have matured enough to give up on socialism as well as tyranny.You’re gonna’ have a tough time of it blamin’ ignorance on the Marlboro man.Our commander in chief is penalty enough.Isn’t it something how a smoker like myself will use their unwarranted addiction in a foolish attempt to legitimize almost anything?It’s probably a good thing that I don’t have drones at my disposal.My ashtrays are full.My cup runneth over.My cemeteries are empty.For I haven’t desired in 52 years to even kill myself yet alone anyone else.Therein lies the difference between dreams and desires.Barry would kill me just because he’s sick enough to believe that the will of the globalists is justification in and of itself.I’ll probably keep smokin’ while I wholeheartedly disagree.Addiction to anything is really rather strange and so unnecessary.Which is why it becomes a tool of government to legitimize vice with the one hand while crushing it with the other.
Did you ever wonder why Tobacco is targeted, we know that alcohol, medications are far more destructive?
Maybe this is the cause dumbo!
“- After 40 years of scientific research on the effects of nicotine, researchers now say that they have sound scientific proof that smoking and nicotine have a significant positive effect on human brain performance.
The brain works better when it gets nicotine – almost like an optimized computer. Nicotine is a “work-drug” that enables its consumers to focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than non-smokers.”
“- In 2010 the U.S. government published a groundbreaking meta-analysis, which summarizes the last 40 years of knowledge about tobacco and nicotine effects on the brain. The analysis was conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, headed by researcher Stephen Heishman: Meta-analysis of the acute effects of nicotine and smoking on human performance. Abstract: (3) – full text (4).
The results in Heishman’s analysis gives the clear impression that it could turn out to be a very bad idea to try to “eradicate” tobacco. For nicotine has positive impacts in the areas of motor skills, attention, focus, speed and memory – and the effect is significant, the researchers say: The results are not due to statistical chance. ”
http://dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html
After spending all that money and effort in destroying the education system, they are not going to let you think for yourself.
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are. ~ H.L. Mencken
Dulles said:
“US would use all their might and money to dupe people. Human brain is liable for change. We will plant chaos in peoples’ heads and we will replace their true values with false ones. We will find allies in Russia. Step by step we will watch the slow death of the most rebellious nation ever existed. Cinema, theater, literature will cultivate the lowest human feelings. We will impose a cult of sex, violence, treachery etc. We will make a mess of a government. Honesty and morale will become redundant. Cruelty, lies, drug and alcohol abuse, distrust and hostility will become essential part of life. Generation after generation will be undermined. Youth will be our tool. We have to corrupt and subvert it”
The brain works even better still on methamphetamine, for a while at least. Like tobacco, you pay dearly for that “positive effect.”
Tobacco kills many more people than alcohol and drugs combined. Most of the people I’ve known who have died have died from tobacco.
I still fully support people’s right to ingest any substances they want. If the pursuit of happiness leads to your death, so be it.
Ahh, therein lies the rub, LSA. Most smokers die from lung cancer. The so-called ‘medical establishment’ has lied to us for decades, claiming they don’t have a cure for cancer. If you want to know the truth, here’s an article I wrote last summer proving they’ve been lying to us all along.
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/big-pharmas-lies-exposed-cancer-is-curable/19239/
Being an Large Scale Agressor, apparently does not preclude you from being a PinBrainedFool. Please investigate the facts on drug related deaths, “[Allopathy is the leading cause of death, 783,936 every year in the USA alone, controlled by the mafia outfit: the FDA. That is over 2 million overt (Iatrogenic) deaths worldwide every year. Then add on the 5-10 million who die every year due to suppressed medicine such as Vitamin C (e.g. over 10 million from Sepsis, Suppress alternatives The Cancer Conspiracy), with their lives shortened by chemotherapy & radiation.”
“There are approximately 80,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States.1 This makes excessive alcohol use the 3r d leading”
Whereas: “Cigarette smoking causes an estimated 443,000 deaths each year, including approximately 49,000 deaths due to exposure to secondhand ” ie less than 400,00 deaths. But, look at the breakdown by age and Voila:
The truth is that smoking-related deaths, even under the generous definitions used by CDC, are associated with old age. Nearly 60 percent of the deaths occur at age 70 or above; nearly 45 percent at age 75 or above; and almost 17 percent at the grand old age of 85 or above! Nevertheless, without the slightest embarrassment, the public health community persists in characterizing those deaths as “premature.” Regrettable, yes; premature, no.
In fact there are NO deaths from Tobacco, not one. But every yammerhead wants to pin it on something, so Lung cancer, if you smoke is BECAUSE you smoke, if you do not smoke then it is just lung cancer.
Alcohol overdose will kill you, drug overdose will kill you, however very large doses of nicotine can result in an increase in the unpleasant effects, including feelings of faintness and confusion, and a rapid decrease in blood pressure and breathing rate.
In some cases, it can lead to convulsions and death from respiratory failure. Sixty milligrams of nicotine taken orally can be fatal for an adult. You cannot get 60 milligrams from smoking, not even the laboratory animals who were forced to smoke the equivalent of 300 cigarettes per day died from tobacco.
However thank you for allowing me to choose my own method of dying.
The point that I made was that in 40 years of study, it was inarguably shown that smoking enhances cognitive performance.
“As early as 1966, it was recognized that the performance enhancement resulting from amphetamine use was
generally significant in restoring performance in fatigued
subjects, rather than producing performance above baseline
in normal subjects”, oops no enhancement there only restoration of performance, mainly physical owing to fatigue.
You could try being a Large Scale Intellectual.
@ PJ London
Where do I start with you?
First you come at Carl Hammel and call him a “dumbo”. Then you come at Large Scale Aggresser and call him a “PinBrainedFool”, and say “You could try being a Large Scale Intellectual”.
You need to learn to show respect to people. Where I come from when you disrespect you get stomped.
Second, you play yourself off as being smart and full of facts, and as one who can articulate a meaningful statement as an intellectual. As you say!
I call Bullshit!!! You sir, are a Swaggerjacker (look it up smart guy)
I took key sentences out those intellectual words you supposedley penned yourself to educated us dummies. And you plagiarized every bit of it word for word from other peoples hard work and research and presented it as your own brilliant words with no links or credits given.
That makes you low life scum, a bottom feeder, a thief, and you should be shunned and banned from this site, as a troll.
Better yet… stick around. Now, that we know who and what you are… we can have fun with you!
Me… Punk, I would just stomp you!
Unmitigated arrogance has no place on this site. I agree with you 100%, Smilardog.
btw, great slam. I saw his other comment you mentioned, so thanks for saving me the trouble.
I would have been far less kind.
#1
I just have no use at all for people who disrespect others. Disrespect of the people is a trait of our traitors in power, and I just have no use for them and it is the one thing that will set me off in a flash.
and you are right, I was a little kind to him, but I had to show respect for Henry’s house. That’s how it works.
Apparently you haven’t seen Henry go postal on a poster yet, Smilardog.
Even I cringe when he does.
Addiction to government is far more hazardous to your health!!!
Now i wonder why this would be when Alcohol has been labeled more deadly that Crack,Cocaine,and smoking combined ..
And why is it With alcohol USE in the USA costing SOCIETY over $280 billion a year and deaths,destruction,suicides,murder,rapes,child and spousal abuse,medical issues nationwide,and being the biggest burden to the HEALTH industry than any other consumed substance in the world,and in the meantime Pays Pennies in TAX,is condoned,advertised,served with children present ?
The Mummies they exhumed all had heart disease,what baffled the experts was there was NO TOBACCO BACK THEN……SO you can see how this Extra charge is a FALSE reason for charging smokers and letting all the drunks run wild and kill,maim ,and tax the health system,judicial system,to the HILT…….GO FIGURE
Any questions ?
As always the govt. – be it local, state or federal – always makes laws that are directed towards that average common type people. They make laws only to benefit the law makers.