Oct

Senate health bill penalizes cigarette smokers, but smack and crack are okay

I guess junkies are another favorite constituency of the Democrats. Cigarette smokers may want to put down the butts and pick up a joint, or a pipe. Even a needle would be better, at least if you’re to judge such things by the Senate health care bill.

I don’t disagree that smokers should be charged a higher premium than non-smokers. But so should people who engage in any other unhealthy habit or lifestyle. Why should someone who eats a healthy diet, goes to bed early every night and goes to the gym three times a week pay the same premium as a pot smoking, coke snorting, obese and sedentary alcoholic? Oh I know, if we’re all stoned we won’t notice what they’re doing to us.

CNS News reports:

Under the Senate Finance Committee version of the health-care bill, health insurance companies would be allowed to charge tobacco users premiums up to 50 percent higher than those of non-users, while marijuana and crack cocaine smokers could not be penalized with higher premiums.

According to provisions spelled out in the Senate Finance Committee’s summary of the bill–the so-called “chairman’s mark”–insurance issuers selling policies to individuals could only vary premiums based on three characteristics: tobacco use, age and family composition.

Just for fun, here’s video of Patrick Kennedy, who acts like he smoked a little something before this appearance. He thinks health care reform should take the bureaucracy out of the insurance industry. Let’s replace it with the federal government! No bureaucracy there.