About Time? Smokers Face Tough New Rules Under Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act contains a number of provisions intended to incent “personal responsibility,” or the notion that health care isn’t just a right — it’s an obligation. None of these measures is more prominent than the law’s individual mandate, designed to ensure that every American obtains health coverage or pays a fine for choosing to go uninsured.
But one provision that’s gotten much less attention — until recently — relates to smoking; specifically, the ACA allows payers to treat tobacco users very differently by opening the door to much higher premiums for this population.
That measure has some health policy analysts cheering, suggesting that higher premiums are necessary to raise revenue for the law and (hopefully) deter smokers’ bad habits. But other observers have warned that the ACA takes a heavy-handed stick to smokers who may be unhappily addicted to tobacco, rather than enticing them with a carrot to quit.
Under proposed rules, HHS would allow insurers to charge a smoker seeking health coverage in the individual market as much as 50% more in premiums than a non-smoker.
That difference in premiums may rapidly add up for smokers, given the expectation that Obamacare’s new medical-loss ratios already will lead to major cost hikes in the individual market. “For many people, in the years after the law, premiums aren’t just going to [go] up a little,” Peter Suderman predicts at Reason. “They’re going to rise a lot.”
Meanwhile, Ann Marie Marciarille, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, adds that insurers have “considerable flexibility” in how to set up a potential surcharge for tobacco use. For example, insurers could apply a high surcharge for tobacco use in older smokers — perhaps several hundred dollars per month — further hitting a population that tends to be poorer.
Is this cost-shifting fair? The average American tends to think so.

Nearly 60% of surveyed adults in a 2011 NPR-Thomson Reuters poll thought it was OK to charge smokers more for their health insurance than non-smokers. (That’s nearly twice the number of adults who thought it would be OK to charge the obese more for their health insurance.)
And smoking does lead to health costs that tend to be borne by the broader population. Writing at the Incidental Economist in 2011, Don Taylor noted that “smoking imposes very large social costs” — essentially, about $1.50 per pack — with its increased risk of cancers and other chronic illness. CDC has found that smoking and its effects lead to more than 440,000 premature deaths in the United States per year, with more than $190 billion in annual health costs and productivity loss.
As a result, charging smokers more “makes some actuarial sense,” Marciarille acknowledges. “Tobacco use has a long-term fuse for its most expensive health effects.”
But Louise Norris of Colorado Health Insurance Insider takes issue with the ACA’s treatment of tobacco users.
Noting that smokers represent only about 20% of Americans, Norris argues that “it’s easy to point fingers and call for increased personal responsibility when we’re singling out another group — one in which we are not included.”
As a result, she adds, “it seems very logical to say that smokers should have to pay significantly higher premiums for their health insurance,” whereas we’re less inclined to treat the obese differently because so many of us are overweight.
This approach toward tobacco users also raises the risk that low-income smokers will find the cost of coverage too high and end up uninsured, Norris warns. She notes that tax credits for health coverage will be calculated prior to however insurers choose to set their banding rules, “which means that smokers would be responsible for [an] additional premium on their own.”
Alternate Approach: Focus on Cessation
Nearly 70% of smokers want to quit, and about half attempt to kick the habit at least once per year. But more than 90% are unable to stop smoking, partly because of the lack of assistance; fewer than 5% of smokers appear able to quit without support.
That’s why Norris and others say that if federal officials truly want to improve public health, the law should prioritize anti-smoking efforts like counseling and medication for tobacco users. And the ACA does require new health insurance plans to offer smoking cessation products and therapy.
But as Ankita Rao writes at Kaiser Health News, the coverage of those measures thus far is spotty. Some plans leave out nasal sprays and inhalers; others shift costs to smokers, possibly deterring them from seeking treatment.
Some anti-smoking crusaders hope that states will step into the gap and ramp up cessation opportunities, such as by including cessation therapy as an essential health benefit.
“The federal government has missed several opportunities since the enactment of the ACA to grant smokers access to more cessation treatments,” the American Lung Association warned in November. “Now, as states are beginning implementation of state exchanges and Medicaid expansions, state policymakers have the opportunity to stand up for smokers in their states who want to quit.”

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It's that time of year again: various tax services touting "maximum refund," various retailers with "suggestions" on how to spend those rebates, and the annual Flight of the W-2's as employers inform us how much we got paid last year.

Oh, and something new this year: Box 12.

"What the heck's a Box 12" you ask?

Thanks to The ObamaTax, it's how your employer informs you how much you paid for your health insurance last year.

"Now wait a gosh-darned minute there, Henry. I know how much I paid - I saw it coming out each week."

Um, no: that's how much you paid in addition to Box 12.

What, you thought your employer paid for any of your health insurance? Not paying attention, I see.

Bet you thought he paid those unemployment premiums and Social Security taxes, too. Now you know.