Do penalties for smokers and the obese make sense?

gotta do something to pay for all the ILLEGAL ALIENS that will bloat the ranks of 0bamacare in the next couple years...

I can hear the smokers over 60 complaining next year about their increased health insurance costs. If they voted for Obozo, Pelosi, Reid et al, they can grin and bear it!

Obozo’s hand puppets, the mediots kept this little aspect quiet until after the election:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-204_162-57565787/older-smokers-priced-out-of-obamacare/

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 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.

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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.”

An alternative proposal that would make leftists lose their minds:

“The Medical Care Provider And Patient Freedom Act”

1. If a medical care provider does not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients or insurance payments for medical services, they are exempt from Obamacare and HIPPA. This is an Opt Out, with no penalties for either Opting Out or in future joining the system if they so choose.

2. If a patient decides that they exclusively want to use medical services from a provider who has Opted Out of Obamacare, Medicare, Medicaid, and insurance payments for medical care, they may also OPT OUT, and will be exempt from any fines, penalties, or taxation to support these programs. Likewise they will be removed from and no longer participate in, all provisions of HIPPA or any other government medical records or statistics information processing or retention system.

3. Physicians and patients who have Opted Out of these systems will no longer have any personal or medical information shared with public or private entities, unless it is essential to their medical care and done with exact permissions for each and every use.

YES...what YOU said....”Aids”....Drug users...Alcoholics?

The list goes on and on. With so many categories, EVERYONE falls into at least two groups so the gov will eventually get a penalty from everyone. Sugary drinks? Penalty tax. Ate red meat? Penalty tax. Drove to work instead of walking? Double penalty tax.

When is Michelle Obama going to pick on the diets of welfare recipients instead of defenseless little kids?

It’s a shame we’re even having this discussion.

If health insurance were offered by a free market the rates would be assessed based on business statistics and those making unhealthy choices would have to pay more. Of course, both decisions, life choices and insurance purchase, should be made by the consumer (it’s called freedom!).

The fundamental problem is that health services are now funded by the taxpayer at gunpoint, and then the collective must decide the rules of redistribution based on “fairness” (whatever that is).

Free markets have the added benefit of driving costs down. Look at the prices of cosmetic and lasik surgery.

I suppose this rant sounds a tad libertarian, but hey, aren’t we supposed to be free citizens, along with the associated adult responsibilities?

Excellent read Thanks.

It makes a lot of sense.

Yea, but we know fluoridation of water is - right?

Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

The promiscuous lifestyles of sodomites who seek anonymous sex in public washrooms may be at peril if the Health Nazis push through these other measures.

Homosexual males who do have AIDs, have a life expectancy that averages 39 years.

Homosexual males who don’t have AIDs, have a life expectancy that averages 41 years.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So the ones without AIDS get only an average of three more years of life? If this is so what is killing them?

Most think people are overweight cause they over eat. What about medications that cause this?

Most all anti depressants list weight gain as a side affect.

Then there are drugs like prednisone...

http://www.webmd.com/drugs/mono-9383-PREDNISONE+-+ORAL.aspx?drugid=6007&drugname=Prednisone+Oral&pagenumber=6

Exactly. Wholly preventable. Simple cause and effect.

In the effort to legitimize and normalize gays, there has been a total absence of discussion of health issues and costs.

Unlike sound public policy on ALL other communicable diseases - disclosure, record keeping - AIDS/HIV is shrouded in government mandated secrecy.

Homosexual males who do have AIDs, have a life expectancy that averages 39 years.

Homosexual males who don’t have AIDs, have a life expectancy that averages 41 years.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So the ones without AIDS get only an average of three more years of life? If this is so what is killing them?

The reason that they live only 3 more years is that their very lifestyle leaves them exposed to suicide, alcoholic poisoning, or both, "gay" men's bowel syndrome, despair, vicious beatings within their groups, etc.

And the fascinating thing about these figures is that they were all compiled from their own homosexual magazines, from studies of their obituaries, ages of death, why they died, etc. So they have trouble disputing these figures, because they came from their own publications.