But I’m not dumping on smokers. Uncool to pair “Filthy habit”, which I didn’t say, with “self-inflicted wound”, which I did. Your addition is judgmental and dumping on smokers, but “self-inflicted wounds” is about cause and effect.

Nicotine addiction is brutal. It took a heart attack before I could give up tobacco. It’s naive to think that onerous taxes on cigarettes or higher health insurance premiums are enough to overcome an addiction that’s been called worse than heroin. So there’s merit to the argument for “forgiveness” for smokers. But I also can’t ignore the genuine economic burden smokers place on the system…a system, you might recall, we’ve just spent five bitter years trying to reform against rabid opposition. The sad truth that we don’t have a single-payer system yet, and there’s a price to be paid for that forgiveness, so there’s still a case to be made for nicking smokers harder, as a bandaid on an imperfect system.

It’s making my head hurt.

There’s an entire field of study devoted to risk assessment for insurance. Basically, if enough statistics show a given behavior or characteristic increases risk, it’s usually enough to tweak rates. Actual cause and effect isn’t always necessary.

Statistic show smokers have higher rates of auto accidents. If you quit smoking for a year, most insurance companies will be glad to re-evaluate you.

Our car insurance rates have changed a lot over the years depending on our kids’ ages, accident records, years we’ve been driving, school grades, and other things.

Then again, there’s no real need to build on a conspiracy theory.

It’s a lot easier to leave an old, inane policy in place, than to work up the energy for an interstate change.

But in reality, they are all pre-existing conditions. Maybe smokers are at fault for their lung cancer, but are diabetics at fault for their their disease? Are we to penalize those who through no fault of their own have genetic dispositions to certain diseases? And what of those conditions that cannot be traced to some convenient moral turpitude? Like old age?

There should be no pre-existing conditions. Everybody pays the same, period. And the system would become much cheaper and easier to administer. The insurance companies aren’t giving you a break because you don’t smoke, they’re just rigging the odds in their favor.

The only fair way to do this is single payer, and everybody pays the same, witholding taxes–a flat percentage.

The ACA doesn’t mandate a flat premium for everybody, but it seems to reduce the heavy multiplier caused by circumstance; e.g. the article mentions that age can lead to premiums as much as 3X higher for old fartsus.

One other thing I got from the article worth noting: The smoking premium is at a state’s discretion, with a maximum of 50% but states have discretion to use a lower figure. Hey hey hey states rights and Federalism! Yay!

I’ll bet in the 26 or so states dominated by Republicans–the ones who’ve opted out of everything they can– there won’t be a smoking penalty.

Or maybe there will be, if they continue to try to make people artificially unhappy with ObamaCare.

It really doesn’t sound all that sinister, Rob.

I had quit for 2 years and started back when I thought my baby daughter had a brain tumor. We find many excuses for weakness.

I feel like I have beaten the health hazard of smoking, at least to my own satisfaction. I haven’t beaten the nastiness of the habit or the outrageous expense, or the potential health hazard to those around me.

It is a peculiar habit. I may still give it up. Once I decide something I am good at the fight. I had it beat and then pulled defeat from the jaws of victory for a stupid reason