California won't be among those who will charge higher
premiums for smoking - even though -smoking - has health risks.
According to federal law, states can charge those
using tobacco 50% more for a health plan -
although California legislature has passed a bill against doing this.
Cigarette Smoking - A Silent Killer
Smoking kills the smoker silently, pushing him towards serious illnesses, which slowly lead to death.
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The Affordable Care Act believes in eliminating any bias of gender or medical condition in the pricing of health insurance for citizens of America. Critics feel that a tobacco surcharge would create a new category for discrimination.
Karen Pollitz of the Kaiser Family Foundation said
that smokers would not get the benefit of subsidy through the marketplaces in
2014. For a low income person, a $ 3000 subsidy - when the cost of the policy
is $6000 is affordable - a tobacco surcharge on this would thrust it back to
$6000.
![Quiz on Smoking]( "Quiz on Smoking")
Approximately half the smokers die due to smoking -related diseases. But it is not just the smokers who are at the receiving end. The passive smokers too, often pay a heavy price. If you still have not 'kicked the butt', learn more horrifying facts about smoking by participating in the following quiz.
According to Rick Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions in Washington,
"For somebody who is totally hooked after many years and older ... and those kinds of people are more expensive and often do need more medical care, they have two bad choices: go without health insurance and be impoverished that way, or get health insurance and be impoverished."
Weinberg a health Policy analyst says yes to higher insurance premiums for tobacco users — as long as they're not too high — as they provide the type of financial penalties that studies say cause people to quit smoking. By contrast, he says, banning higher rates because smoking disproportionately affects the poor reflects paternalistic policymaking that does nothing to fix the problem.
"I think we have to be very careful what types of favors we're doing for people. Because if the end results of this policy is greater numbers of smokers, then that's not actually helping the populations that we're trying to help," he says.
California Democratic Assemblyman Richard Pan disagrees. He's a Sacramento pediatrician who wrote the legislation. Pan believes rate increases of any amount on smokers' premiums may dissuade some from buying health insurance altogether.
"We want smokers to actually have health care coverage," he says. "And through having health care coverage they will have access to smoking cessation treatment as well as, of course, health care for not only smoking-related but even their nonsmoking-related illness."
This makes sense to those in California - that it is essential to provide tobacco users with affordable health care rather than hike their premiums making it difficult to quit smoking.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and District of Columbia are among others who don't charge smokers a higher premium.
References :
Hannah Punitha (IRDA Licence Number: 2710062)
Stephanie O'Neill, April 2013
Source: Medindia
Quiz on Smoking
Approximately half the smokers die due to smoking -related diseases. But it is not just the smokers who are at the receiving end. The passive smokers too, often pay a heavy price. If you still have not 'kicked the butt', learn more horrifying facts about smoking by participating in the following quiz.
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According to Rick Curtis, president of the Institute for Health Policy Solutions in Washington,
"For somebody who is totally hooked after many years and older ... and those kinds of people are more expensive and often do need more medical care, they have two bad choices: go without health insurance and be impoverished that way, or get health insurance and be impoverished."
Weinberg a health Policy analyst says yes to higher insurance premiums for tobacco users — as long as they're not too high — as they provide the type of financial penalties that studies say cause people to quit smoking. By contrast, he says, banning higher rates because smoking disproportionately affects the poor reflects paternalistic policymaking that does nothing to fix the problem.
"I think we have to be very careful what types of favors we're doing for people. Because if the end results of this policy is greater numbers of smokers, then that's not actually helping the populations that we're trying to help," he says.
California Democratic Assemblyman Richard Pan disagrees. He's a Sacramento pediatrician who wrote the legislation. Pan believes rate increases of any amount on smokers' premiums may dissuade some from buying health insurance altogether.
"We want smokers to actually have health care coverage," he says. "And through having health care coverage they will have access to smoking cessation treatment as well as, of course, health care for not only smoking-related but even their nonsmoking-related illness."
This makes sense to those in California - that it is essential to provide tobacco users with affordable health care rather than hike their premiums making it difficult to quit smoking.
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and District of Columbia are among others who don't charge smokers a higher premium.
References :
Hannah Punitha (IRDA Licence Number: 2710062)
Stephanie O'Neill, April 2013
Source: Medindia
Smoking Risk Calculator
Do you smoke cigarettes daily? Use medindia smoking risk calculator and calculate your reduced Life Span due to Smoking.
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 How to Quit SmokingTired of people asking you to stop smoking around them? Don't want to be ordered around by public smoking bans? Simple steps that help you to quit smoking. | Advertisement
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