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The
New American
Under
ObamaCare, It’s Quit Smoking
or Pay the Price — Literally
by Michael Tennant
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...
Read
the rest of the article at The New
American
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