Big tobacco and anti-cancer activists agree: Health provision in Obamacare goes too far

[boony]

From the atricle:

"Big tobacco companies and anti-cancer activists are standing in opposition to a part of the Affordable Care Act that allows insurance companies to charge smokers 50 percent more than patients who do not use tobacco."

"If states do not alter the health law’s rule, there is at least one industry that sees promise in this provision: manufacturers of electronic cigarettes. Since these products use nicotine, but not tobacco, their users could dodge the tobacco rating requirements.
“We definitely see there will be a potential for this law to drive current tobacco smokers to an alternative, and the most likely product is electronic cigarettes,” White Cloud Electronic Cigarettes co-founder Matthew Steingraber said."

 

[Fiamma]

From the atricle:

"Big tobacco companies and anti-cancer activists are standing in opposition to a part of the Affordable Care Act that allows insurance companies to charge smokers 50 percent more than patients who do not use tobacco."

"If states do not alter the health law’s rule, there is at least one industry that sees promise in this provision: manufacturers of electronic cigarettes. Since these products use nicotine, but not tobacco, their users could dodge the tobacco rating requirements.
“We definitely see there will be a potential for this law to drive current tobacco smokers to an alternative, and the most likely product is electronic cigarettes,” White Cloud Electronic Cigarettes co-founder Matthew Steingraber said."

Depending on the method used to test for smokers this could be factually incorrect:

"If states do not alter the health law’s rule, there is at least one industry that sees promise in this provision: manufacturers of electronic cigarettes. Since these products use nicotine, but not tobacco, their users could dodge the tobacco rating requirements."

If they do the cheaper test, testing for cotinine they will be classified as smokers. If they do a CO2 test they will not. Much has already been written about e cig users being classified as smokers because they use nicotine when it comes to health insurance among other things.