Computer glitch delays Obamacare provision allowing healthcare insurers to charge tobacco users up to 50% higher premiums

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NorthOfAtlanta

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What studies have y'all found on good vs bad on nicotine? From what I've been reading, the good far outweighs the bad, but I can't find any definitive answer on how much it affects heart rate and blood pressure. Actually, it sounds like a miracle drug. No wonder we couldn't quit smoking.

JPWR, I work in the health field also. They are really cracking down, and soon we won't be able to be employed. I was hoping vaping would be a viable alternative, but I'm not holding my breath.

Here's an article on a study about e-cigarettes and the heart.

E-Cigarettes Don't Harm Heart, Study Shows
 

clphoton

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They could test for carbon monoxide to differentiate between just-nicotine users and smokers. But chances are it will be just a nicotine test, which generally actually tests for cotinine, the metabolyte of nicotine.

The only way I know that could be done is if an arterial blood gas is drawn, i.e. smoke inhalation from a house fire or leaky heater. If there's another way to test for that I'd be interested to know. Perhaps a venous draw would be sufficient.
Usually one time is all people need so that they cringe when someone says "lets get an abg".
blood-gases-metabolic-acidosisoo.jpg
I'm imagining all of us voluntarily lining up for this procedure.:(
 

firechick

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The only way I know that could be done is if an arterial blood gas is drawn, i.e. smoke inhalation from a house fire or leaky heater. If there's another way to test for that I'd be interested to know. Perhaps a venous draw would be sufficient.
Usually one time is all people need so that they cringe when someone says "lets get an abg".
View attachment 233554
I'm imagining all of us voluntarily lining up for this procedure.:(

I have had this done more than once. It is not something I would be willing to do again unless I really, REALLY knew that I was in trouble from inhalation. No way would I allow my employers get anywhere near this level of invasive procedure.
 

NorthOfAtlanta

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The only way I know that could be done is if an arterial blood gas is drawn, i.e. smoke inhalation from a house fire or leaky heater. If there's another way to test for that I'd be interested to know. Perhaps a venous draw would be sufficient.
Usually one time is all people need so that they cringe when someone says "lets get an abg".
View attachment 233554
I'm imagining all of us voluntarily lining up for this procedure.:(

This isn't the only way, here's a link to an explanation of a non-invasive test for co. Quick and easy.

http://www.breathcotest.com/faq.asp
 

ad356

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all of this stuff is far too invasive of privacy. how about this just make it public knowledge to all covered by the health insurance that if you get sick from smoking they shouldnt cover it. otherwise they should MYOB. you decide to smoke it should be at your own risk. testing someone for a substance that is completely legal is utter BS weather you get your nicotine from cigarettes or from vaping. in other words leave us alone i am a big boy and old enough to make my own decisions, i dont need someone behind a desk telling me how to live my life
 

clphoton

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clphoton

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all of this stuff is far too invasive of privacy. . . . . i dont need someone behind a desk telling me how to live my life
I think we're way past that. Under the guise of doing us good the government has seized previously unbelievable control over our lives.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
C.S. Lewis
 

firechick

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This isn't the only way, here's a link to an explanation of a non-invasive test for co. Quick and easy.

http://www.breathcotest.com/faq.asp

Breath CO2 testing would be great. Companies are more likely to use the less expensive urine screening for nicotine metabolites since they are using the sample for drug testing as well. Let's face it, many employers don't care if vaping is safer than smoking and gives a positive test result in a vaper. The goal is to save money on insurance premiums, and spending less on the testing is the road they will probably take. We've come a long way toward vaping being accepted but there are miles to go before we are seen as something other than high tech smokers.
 

DC2

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We've come a long way toward vaping being accepted but there are miles to go before we are seen as something other than high tech smokers.
How have we come a long way? By fighting.
And how will we make up those extra miles? By fighting.

Sitting back in a corner with our heads covered will get us exactly where we are now.
And it will only get worse, not better, unless we continue to stand up and be heard and be counted.
 
The higher insurance premiums, if it happens, should help people realize how out of control the head hunt for smokers has become. There are already businesses that won't hire smokers. This is past ridiculous, but like Firechick said, the whole thing is about saving money, and we're an easy target. Unless there are mass protests, they'll simply keep on bleeding us dry, or we'll sit back and let it happen, because it seems too big to fight.

The E-cig is our first chance to really fight back, because it does away with the second hand smoke argument. No matter that the studies were flawed and that it's obviously been an agenda to demonize us so that taxing us would be okay.

What infuriates me is that people don't realize that once they're done with us there are so many other people to target with their high taxation. As long as it's just "us" and not "them", they're all for it. I hope we're all fed up enough to stand tough!
 

rothenbj

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all of this stuff is far too invasive of privacy. how about this just make it public knowledge to all covered by the health insurance that if you get sick from smoking they shouldnt cover it. otherwise they should MYOB. you decide to smoke it should be at your own risk. testing someone for a substance that is completely legal is utter BS weather you get your nicotine from cigarettes or from vaping. in other words leave us alone i am a big boy and old enough to make my own decisions, i dont need someone behind a desk telling me how to live my life

The problem is how do you determine if you got sick from smoking? Let's face it, nitrosamines occur in and burned organic material. TSNAs are a sales pitch. You'll find them in the emissions from vehicles and planes, in the smoke that you create in your fireplace, in all the air in a campground and even in the food you cook on your barbecue grill.

What you're proposing is that 10 people work in an environment that creates a lot of dangerous emissions. Six people get sick, one of which was a smoker. Five get coverage, one does not because they smoked. Joe Paterno died of lung cancer and the AD at Penn State has it. Neither was a smoker and basically neither spent much time around smokers, how do you pick or choose who will get covered and who won't.

Do we stop paying for medical coverage for people with a certain BMI because we know excessive weight leads to diabetes, heart problems, strokes and many other diseases. Should I not be covered if I get into a motorcycle accident because my choices lead to more risk?

Other than the propaganda being spewed about lost productivity, much of what is do to a calculation used to cost out cigarette breaks, the vast majority of smokers have no health effects until much after their working days. Smokers have just become an easy target. Now they're targeting non-smokers in the form of people that have nicotine in their systems. CO testing would be much more appropriate from an insurance perspective. It would establish not only the increased risk caused by smoking, but also anyone that has serious exposure in unhealthy environments. It would also put people on alert that their life choices are putting them at risk.

I'm still of the belief that you can't legislate health and most people do things that cause health issues, one way or the other.
 

rothenbj

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Cactus, if people would understand that the problem with health care costs is much greater than the smoking "pandemic". I had a hardware failure and lost the link to the study of health care costs between smokers, overweight people and "the good guys". As I recall, the most costly are the healthy group, mostly due to longevity. Not only do they cost more medically, but they also cost more in other societal costs. My mother is 94, never smoked as far as anyone is concerned (I think she may have had a few cigarettes when she was young, but didn't like them). Her two brothers are 89 and 85 are non-smokers. All have been collecting SS and pensions for decades and ending up with the various ailments old age brings on. In fact my uncle is a triple dipper- SS, Military asnd Post Office (he really worked the system, just missing a political handout).

Then came the over weight crown that normally sees their health costs much earlier than the other two groups and generally outliving the smokers. Finally, the group that gets the bad rap. Smokers generally don't have issues until later in life and the diseases created shorten it considerably. A lot of numbers get thrown around but I think it's about 10 years shorter than the over weight crowd.

I don't mind living a little longer at this point since I'm getting a little long in the tooth, so to speak. Maybe I got lucky, maybe tomorrow I'll find that I didn't. Whatever happens, my 43 years of smoking can only be blamed on my will power, lousy quit smoking products and the lies of the ANTZ about smokeless tobacco for decades. It's really time for people that know better to get honest with the people.
 
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