Investigation Concerning Termination of Smokers And/Or Charging Smokers Higher Healthcare or Disability Premiums

http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php

Great Find Claude
Please post this everywhere.

YEAH! Could it be.....is the head of the worm FINALLY beginning to turn?

and for the states that want to impose healthcare on all....like MA, if you opt out of the state mandated health insurance-you will be fined by tax options for your "Thanks but No Thanks"!
they are pretty darn smart in nailing our backsides with this "insurance" crap.
The Insurance Industries are at the bottom of ALL OF THIS! and have been since insurance was even thought of.
PAH on insurances and their disgusting offspring around the world.

quote:

Originally posted by claude zachary:
Investigation Concerning Termination of Smokers And/Or Charging Smokers Higher Healthcare or Disability Premiums

http://www.cmht.com/investigation_smokers.php

Thanks Claude! This makes me have hope that finally, someone is beinning to realize how out of hand this situation has gotten.

Oldstudent - thanks for pointing that out about MA! I also see a potential problem with this situation - and yeah, I definitely see the insurance industry behind this potential mess, only to boost their profits.
Thanks,

OldStudent,

I work in insurance and I have ever since I graduated from college.

I find your remark to be accurate.

In my state, and probably others, that largest lobbying group, in terms of dollars, is the health insurance industry.

Communal insurance is a cost saving measure, regardless of any individual's behavior. The agreement is supposed to be "We agree to do it this way because it would be more expensive to do it ourselves". No one is entitled to communal insurance agreements, though everyone now feels that way. This feeling of entitlement leads people to believe that an arbitrary standard of behavior needs to be imposed.

A good example: Medicare was created to protect senior citizens from excess healthcare costs, but, even when you adjust for inflation, senior citizens now pay more for healthcare than they did BEFORE the creation of Medicare.

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1294

quote:

PAH on insurances and their disgusting offspring around the world.

They are nothing but crooks. I used to deal with them daily.
However, it didn't concern health care.

It's about their bottom line, not your life. Period.

ERISA was a dealth clause for many private pension plans. I worked in insurance at the time and we found the reporting requirements alone ate up all the money available for benefits. Needless to say the plan was liquidated.

I see no correlation between health insurance coverage and a program designed to safeguard pension plans?

Note that the original link connected to a law firm seeking litigants for a class action.

While I agree with their legal premise (activities 'off the clock' need to have a clearly demonstrable negative effect on work before they are an emplyer's business) a lot of the current problems smokers face are the result of using questionable science to fund raise for class action lawyers. Who generally speaking couldn't care less about anything but their piece of the pie.

This class action is just the other side of the coin.

As a society we have become too litigious, pure and simple.

Yes. Small employers are cutting or eliminating benefits because the regulatory paperwork costs more than the value of the benfit to workers.

I don't smoke. I don't care if others smoke. If I did I would make a point of avoiding places where smoking was permitted. I don't need a lawyer or burocritter to make me a pretty little pink playpen. I'm an adult.

WOW, TOOK LESS THAN A WEEK for a WI "opinion" to FOLLOW THE LEADER...

A Universal Healthcare Plan I Can Swallow…
by Benjamin Artz

http://www.wpri.org/Commentary/2007/1.07/ArUH1.29.07.pdf
"The other way to reach universal healthcare is to let the market do its thing
with minimal government intervention. The government’s only role would be to
mandate that everyone be insured or face a penalty such as a fine. Both
Massachusetts and California are currently proposing this idea. The government
already does this with liability car insurance to make certain victims of car
accidents are financially cared for. The government could do the same by making
certain that emergency healthcare is paid for by the individual’s health insurance
and not by everyone else’s premiums."

I am soooo sick of this "sandbox" called "public health".

The medical profession created health insurance as a means to get paid for services provided. Currently the quality of health care could not survive without it. If there was no one willing to pay for a transplant, the cost would not be what it is.

Universal coverage only guarantees the future spiraling of health care costs.

If people live to be 200 - what will it cost society? Who actually benefits? Can the world support people living to 200? Where will the jobs come from? Where will they all be housed? Where will the food come from?

These and other questions will be answered in the next 40 years as boomers continue to exist at the public trough.

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce:
If people live to be 200 - what will it cost society? Who actually benefits? Can the world support people living to 200? Where will the jobs come from? Where will they all be housed? Where will the food come from?

Where will the food go?

Into adult-sized diapers.

No. Currently the politically correct way to use food is to turn it into ethanol and use it to power SUV's. Don't know if the private jet liberals use ethanol in the air.

Anyway folks - expect the price of food to go up, expect less food sent to other parts of the world were people are dying of malnutrition.

Hey. But just like all the BS about SHS it all sounds good and plays in Iowa & at a politically correct U or PSB outfit near you so while it may not be good for the earth or the people living on the earth it is good for politics. Says it all.

quote:

Originally posted by gnatyo:

Anyway folks - expect the price of food to go up, expect less food sent to other parts of the world were people are dying of malnutrition.

The price of tortillas in Mexico has gone through the roof because of ethanol and tortillas are made from white corn, not the yellow corn used for ethanol. Their price on the market is tied to yellow corn.

I believe the article I read said Mexicans are turning to cheaper ways to eat and health-wise it's worse.

And if the price of white corn is up (and tied to yellow corn's price) it means yellow corn's price is up too.

Ethanol, it is subsidized at the local level through grants, low interest loans and 51 cents per gallon. Not to mention farm subsidies. Big oil received $2.5 billion in subsidies to blend it in gasoline. Corn is the most damaging crop to land. South American cane, and palm oils have yeilds that are at least 6 times higher than corn. If a US company sets up in Central America opens up a plant, processes and exports to the US they receive the per gallon subsidy. Corn prices were up 20% thus sending the cost of food up. You can process every field in the US and it would not meet something like 10% of the need. Of course the land would be shot in a few years. Just another big scam. I could go on but I would just be the O word. Obstructionists.

As opposed to Objectivists...

Concerning ethanol, it's a joke, to be considered as a primary motor fuel. An internal combustion engine uses a LOT more of it than it does gasoline. It just doesn't make as much energy. We ran alcohol in drag cars, and, man, it really uses it up. You had to jet it extremely rich: and, it's hard as hell on most fuel systems.

All in all, it's a pork scam to bullshit the sheeple, and someone in gov is gettin' some kickback, you can damn sure count on it.Another socialist "feel-good" deal.

And yes, I know this threads not about ethanol..