Obama care

[frankiej]

If you are a bad driver premiums are higher if you smoke 2 packs a day FU pay double

The person who smokes 2 packs of cigarettes pays the premium of a shorter life and the price of tobacco.

It is about caring for people regardless of who they are. It is shit stains like you who hold back progress with your "me me me" attitude.

[cratehorus]

How much
will it cost is my main concern. no one knows, why the big
secret? aA few hundred dollars a year, that's a laugh,If it was a few hundred a year i would not complain I
hear it might be more like 400 to 500 a month which will hurt me a
lot

The penalty for not having health insurance will be $95 per year

[Creed of Heresy]

Creed,

I said this before but i guess you missed it. I was told $500.00 by an insurance man, you know, guys who deal in insurance, get it, that price over a year ago. Check page 3 of this thread CD says i am not far off when he checked with his HMO.
If i check prices now maybe it will be lower but not much I don't believe.

I still say if people live poor lifestyles they should be held accountable (pay more) it personal responsibilty, period!!!!!! If you are a bad driver premiums are higher if you smoke 2 packs a day FU pay double

Thanks for the award I am giving one to you for being out of shape tubby

Manowar

Yeah, insurance companies can totally be trusted to not spew bullshit that they disagree with. Please. Get your fucking source from an unbiased guy who doesn't have something to lose by telling you the truth and then get back at me. There's such a thing as "christian scientists," in the category of "christian science," the ones who try to enforce the ideas of creationism by perverting science. But because they have the word "scientist" in their name they MUST know what they're talking about! IGNORING, conveniently, the "christian" part that betrays their bias; like this, ignoring the "insurance" part that betrays his bias because Obamacare is going to hurt these assholes who have profited off of people being sick and have consistently refused coverage to people with pre-existing conditions endlessly. I am not disagreeing with you on the account of liability but you have to realize that that is still a problem; a man can go without smoking his entire life and develop terminal lung cancer at the age of 40, whereas a man can smoke two packs or more a day and die at the age of 80 of heart failure. You want black and white generalizations, and if you haven't learned it by now, then maybe you should realize this: Life is diverse and ridiculously complex and just saying "you should be liable!" doesn't really mean a single thing. You're basically asking the government to do exactly what the health insurance providers already do, which is pick-and-choose who gets coverage based on their lifestyles or their health. What about the man who quit smoking and eight years later he still gets cancer? He fought off the habit but he still has cancer; do you deny him coverage? Make him pay twice as much even though he finally stopped? If you deny him coverage or increase the charge, well, as the old adage goes: If one is punished equally for one sheep as for the flock, might as well steal the flock. And if you DON'T deny him coverage then you still have the fact that he still at one point chose to degrade his health and might be responsible.

Ya see? This shit ain't easy.

In any case, there's a difference between my award and yours. The award I gave was actually something you earned and is actually quite fitting. The "you're just a fatty" one is just you being an immature troll, and hilariously wrong to boot. Seriously, given the choices between being fat and being stupid, I'd rather be a giant human bowling ball than a colossal monument to stupidity any day as it is.

[Manowar]

Creed, want to hear something really stupid, I actually agree with your point to a degree ( i guess i must stupid)

cratehoursus, I wish that was true but 95 a year, i don't believe
You see i have been reading so much on this subject lately, since i just might have to get it. what i have been reading. a lot is just panic and bull and i don't know who to believe If you look at page 3 CD mentions what his HMO told him. a lot more than 95 a year.

Frankie. people who smoke do for the most part face a shorter life and the cost of Tobacco, but that is there choice, I live responsibly and workout everyday. isn't that punishing good behavior and rewarding the smoker? I am not saying don't treat them just make them pony up

Manowar

[Creed of Heresy]

Creed, want to hear something really stupid, I actually agree with your point to a degree ( i guess i must stupid)

Finally, something we actually agree on.

cratehoursus, I wish that was true but 95 a year, i don't believe
You see i have been reading so much on this subject lately, since i just might have to get it. what i have been reading. a lot is just panic and bull and i don't know who to believe If you look at page 3 CD mentions what his HMO told him. a lot more than 95 a year.

You HAVE to believe it; it's the friggin' truth. Individuals making less than $250k a year will only see a .9% medicare tax increase. You know that medicare thing on your paystubs? That'll go up by less than a percent. Read up wikipedia, read up its sources, read up the actual provisional bill itself: That's where I get my information. Read it for yourself! Here, from About.com:
Obamacare facts

Those who don't purchase insurance, and don't qualify for Medicaid or subsidies, will be assessed a penalty of $95 (or 1% of income, whichever is higher) in 2014. It increases to $325 (or 2% of income) in 2015, and $695 (or 2.5% of income) in 2016.

In other words: If you are NOT in the poverty line, and you do not have any kind of health insurance, therefore making you a high-risk for emergency room usage [the biggest cost factor involved with medical care these days] you will be charged either 1% of your income or $95, whichever is higher, per year. You lose that much in change in a year. It WILL go up to $695 yearly in 2016, yes, but that's STILL not nearly as much as even the most basic, cheapest health insurance will cost you, and if that IS going to hurt you so badly then you actually won't be paying that anyway because your income will clearly be low enough. In other words, one more time: STOP. BITCHING. You're sitting there saying that most of what you are reading about is fear-mongering and panic? YOU'RE PANICKING. OVER SHIT THAT WILL NOT HAPPEN TO YOU. Fuckin' A, man!

Frankie. people who smoke do for the most part face a shorter life and the cost of Tobacco, but that is there choice, I live responsibly and workout everyday. isn't that punishing good behavior and rewarding the smoker? I am not saying don't treat them just make them pony up

Manowar

Soooo they should pay 3 times, then? Two times isn't enough? Lower life expectancy, the cost of smokes, AND higher health insurance?
[/quote]

[Jackalope]

Frankie. people who smoke do for the most part face a shorter life and the cost of Tobacco, but that is there choice, I live responsibly and workout everyday. isn't that punishing good behavior and rewarding the smoker? I am not saying don't treat them just make them pony up

A couple of questions.

1) What is the average annualized cost of a smoker's health care vs. a non-smoker, amortized over their lifetime? In other words, how can you justify your statement that smokers should pay double?

2) Would you support making people pay up for other risk factors, or just those you happen to have a prejudice against? How about people with hazardous hobbies? People who intentionally expose themselves to excess UV radiation? People with genetic predispositions to illnesses? If you're not going to advocate this, in my estimation, you're more interested in sticking it to people who's lifestyles you disagree with rather than it having to do with any real associated increase in cost.

One of the main features of group insurance is that it averages the expenses across the entire group. This is a feature, not a bug.

[The Grand Nudger]

The reasons that premiums are higher for any given type of insurance has everything to do with profits and nothing to do with how "bad" someones lifestyle is. That's why -parking-....pay close attention...... -parking- tickets can raise your car insurance premium. Any and every thing to turn a little bit more grist over the mill. Can't blame em, don't agree with em, but it is what it is. Insurance is required -by state law- even in "no-fault" states (and just who do you think provided major backing for that legislation?). These people aren't interested in your personal responsibility, only their bottom line. It's okay with car insurance but not health insurance?

[cratehorus]

( i guess i must stupid)

Yes, you really must.

[Darth]

1) What is the average annualized cost of a smoker's health care vs. a non-smoker, amortized over their lifetime? In other words, how can you justify your statement that smokers should pay double?

2) Would you support making people pay up for other risk factors,

One of the main features of group insurance is that it averages the expenses across the entire group. This is a feature, not a bug.

1) That's for him to justify, but I doubt that he literally meant a mandate that requires all smokers to pay exactly twice as much everybody else does for health insurance, unless exactly twice as much was the extra cost involved.

2) Would I support making people...,? 99.99% of the time my answer is going to be no. No, I don't want the government much involved in the first place.

Yeah manowar, IMO always look at what the other side is saying. And get medical checkups/innoculations man, living a healthy life style is no guarantee, and some things you need to catch quickly or prevent in the first place.

and guys, he's just admitted that he may have been wrong, there is no need to continue to calling him names, it's not going to help you.

[Jackalope]

1) What is the average annualized cost of a smoker's health care vs. a non-smoker, amortized over their lifetime? In other words, how can you justify your statement that smokers should pay double?

1) That's for him to justify, but I doubt that he literally meant a mandate that requires all smokers to pay exactly twice as much everybody else does for health insurance, unless exactly twice as much was the extra cost involved.

I'm not sure that it's the case at all - and I'd love to see some hard data on the subject. It seems intuitive that on average, smokers die younger and faster than people with healthier lifestyles.

An anecdote (which is no substitute for hard date, but serves to illustrate why I raise the question). My mother-in-law was a heavy smoker and died (unsurprisingly) of lung cancer. My grandmother, a non-smoker, lived a relatively healthy lifestyle, developed Alzheimer's, and lived to a ripe old age, with the final 18 years of her life with 24/7 care. Guess who racked up the most health care expenses (by far)?

I'm not suggesting that my anecdote represents the average case. I honestly don't know, and I suspect that Manowar doesn't either. It is food for thought though.

In any case, absent a single payer system, it's largely irrelevant anyways. Within the scope of group plans offered by private insurers, everyone pays the same (which in my opinion, is the right way to do it).

Incidentally, I've been looking around, and there are HMO individual major medical plans offered (at least in my area) for under $200 per month. For healthy people that only want to protect from the risk of financial ruin from a major medical problem, it's an option.

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2) Would I support making people...,? 99.99% of the time my answer is going to be no. No, I don't want the government much involved in the first place.

From an idealistic perspective, I would agree with you on minimal government involvement. However, our system of health care delivery is horribly broken in so many ways that I abandoned that view some time ago. Public health care as it exists in Canada, Europe, the UK, etc. do have their problems - but to their credit they have solved problems that we in the US have not, despite paying more for health care per capita than anyone else in the world.