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Breaking News from Western Journalism
'Obamacare' to hit smokers with huge penalties
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.
http://rt.com/usa/news/health-care-penalties-americans-769/
Big Health Report
Ariz. sheriff vows to defy gun actions, calls Obama a ‘dictator’
Arizona Sheriff Paul Babeu joined PoliticsNation Friday to discuss why he penned a letter to President Obama refusing to enforce his laws and telling him, “You are not a dictator or a king, who can act unilaterally and ignore our legislative process of law making.”
When pressed on that issue, Babeu was unable to point to any concrete action Obama has taken that would fall into that category.
Babeu’s first response was to criticize the president for trying to legislate through executive order, pointing out that such a move would be unconstitutional. “I swore an oath to obey the lawful orders of the officers appointed over me,” he said. “These are not lawful anything because they’re not laws.”
“The president cannot and should not unilaterally say with the wave of the hand that this is what we’re going to do.”
Eventually, after Rev. Sharpton pressed him, Babeu was forced to admit that none of the president’s 23 executive actions create any new laws or violate the Constitution.
At that point, Babeu began attacking the president’s push for lawmakers to pass an assault weapons ban or limiting the size and capacity of magazine.
“The president also speaks about laws that would be created that would ban assault weapons or restrict the sale,” he said.”Most Americans would agree that yes we should have background checks but this idea to think that we’re establishing another law or regulation somehow is going to make America safer is ridiculous.”
Sharpton summed up Babeu’s stance as follows: “I can only assume that you did it just to raise an issue just to get some attention, because when we drill down, you don’t find anything unconstitutional about the executive action, and you admit he’s going to legislate.”
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/25/ariz-sheriff-vows-to-defy-gun-actions-calls-obama-a-dictator/
Minute Men News
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January 26, 2013
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