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Obamacare Software Glitch Will Limit Penalties Charged To Smokers
turbosaab writes "The Obama administration has quietly notified insurers that a computer system glitch will limit penalties that companies may charge smokers under the new healthcare law. The underlying reason for the limitation is another provision in the health care law that says insurers can't charge older customers more than three times what they charge the youngest adults in the pool. The government's computer system has been unable to accommodate the two. So younger smokers and older smokers must be charged the same penalty, or the system will kick it out. A fix will take at least a year to put in place."
I'm hoping that this is because there's too many other things in the pipeline that are more critical to get done first, and not because, say, the system is so badly written that this one relatively minor looking task will take a year.....
If it's the latter, then I'm in the wrong business.
Finding God in a Dog
Sometimes, but given who "in house" would be in this case, they might be better off with a group of enthusiastic 13-year-olds.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
This is not socialism at all, that would be a lot better.
Go look at european healthcare systems, they do not charge extra for any of those things.
No, the sensible party doesn't stand a chance. We only elect Republicans and Democrats to the presidency these days.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
You know, that doesn't sound like socialism at all.
In US political dialogue, "socialism" is just a vague term used to smear people or plans that you don't like. I suspect only a tiny minority of Americans could give a reasonably accurate definition.
Oddly, it has moved to fill the niches formerly occupied by both "communism" and "fascism".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Been trying to warn folks for years that the smokers were the canaries in the coal mine but nobody listened. Look at your history folks, government ALWAYS gets bigger, NEVER smaller. Look at places like NYC telling you how big of a soda you are allowed to have and talks of sugar taxes and fat taxes, all under the "its because of healthcare" bullshit excuse.
This is one of the most wasteful governments in world history folks, we are paying for illegals, we are paying billions to third world thugs to benefit this or that big business, paying paying Uber Millionaires like David Letterman not to grow crops on the acres he bought as a tax writeoff, hell we recently got to pay close to 3 million dollars for EPA to fix a simple malware infection WITH A SHOTGUN...look it up, I'm NOT shitting you, their answer to a simple malware infection was to pay nearly a million to a "consulting" firm and when the consulting firm couldn't wave a magic wand and give them a guarantee that they could make the PCs 100% clean without a wipe they took a sledge to the PCs, the printers, even the fucking monitors...your tax dollars at work folks.
So you better start standing the fuck up for the smokers, because just as they use the "terrorist" and "pedo" magic words to pass laws they end up using to Big bro your ass so too are they using smokers to pass laws they will later use to tell you how many slices of pizza you are allowed to have or they'll tax the fuck out of you, because of "healthcare" of course. Remember the rule folks, ALWAYS bigger,NEVER smaller.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'd not heard about the new smoking thing, forcing smokers to pay an extra penalty.
Why was smoking specifically targeted? Hell, with the ongoing climb in obesity, the increasing incidents of type II diabetes and related complications will soon FAR outweigh problems we have with smokers.
Are we going to penalize (by monetary means) those that have the wrong BMI (not a good scale I know, since it looks really bad for those that are super fit)?
Are we going to tie the IRS and healthcare into the grocery store customer tracking system to see you're buying fattening, high calorie low nutrient foods?
Will they trace how much booze, beer and wine you buy at the grocery store (or wherever you buy it in your state)?
Where do we stop having the govt STOP trying to tell you how to live, and fining you for your CHOICE in lifestyle?
I guess maybe it is easy to pick on the smokers first, but seriously, what about when they start also charging for more common behaviors that are really driving up health costs for the future? How will that go over?
Is this really something the government should be doing at all? Doesn't sound like freedom to me, if the govt is trying to drive human behavior with govt. enforced sanctions.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why was smoking specifically targeted? Hell, with the ongoing climb in obesity, the increasing incidents of type II diabetes and related complications will soon FAR outweigh problems we have with smokers.
It's all political BS. Lifetime healthcare costs for smokers are similar to non-smokers. Smokers tend to die younger, and lung cancer is an average-cost way to die.
As soon as a government tries to reduce costs for healthcare, it will start passing all sorts of intrusive laws using that justification. I can't stand that sort of totalitarianism for any reason, but totalitarianism to save money is particularly vile.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The problem is not Obamacare. The problem is the disgusting, predatorial healthcare system in the US. The problem is that the US doesn't follow every other developed country in the world and treats healthcare as a privilege instead of a right. As such, the monopolies that run the healthcare system exploit the lack of competitive pressure since people in the hospital frequently can't "shop around" for better & cheaper service. This leads to the practice of charging patients literally 10x to 100x what things actually cost.
The fact that the US even has to deal with such an unethical, predatorial system to begin with--instead of just offering universal healthcare--is what failed, not Obamacare itself. In fact, even though Obamacare itself is flawed, I'm hoping that at least the constitutionally-validated mandate will eventually lead to the US offering universal healthcare, since the current system is unsustainable and people are now required to have coverage. No matter how bad Obamacare is, I think it's still a step forward. Consider if it hadn't been implemented... then in 5 more years we'd be right back to town hall meetings with constiuents (and Sarah Palin) screaming about death panels, etc. At least there's a chance to get to universal health care from Obamacare: the mandate is a good excuse to have a government option at least.
Obamacare is bound to go poorly because the US healthcare system is shit. There's nothing Obamacare could do to be "good". We just need to fix our system.
I remember no such thing. I DO, however, remember hoping at the time that smoking WOULD get banned, at least in public places, as it is a fucking disgrace that we allow self-harm bordering on criminal stupidity.
I also quite vividly remember the NSA and other alphabet agencies spying on people being a "known secret" for as long as I've been alive. You clearly don't remember Carnivore, Echelon, TIA etc. but that's ok. In 5 years we'll have another big reveal and people like you will get to pretend the victim once again. It's the only thing you people do well anymore anyway.