How can insurance companies charge extra for nicotine use...

[WarHawk-AVG]

Can anyone confirm this? I did a quick google and it seems promising but would like something more definitive. (And Warhorse, it's not that I don't believe you but I would simply like confirmation.)

You didn't read my link did you?

There is a governmental study showing the 3 MAIN ingredients found in every cigarette, every time, without fail and in what ratios (ordered by the government of the tobacco companies) 3 ingredients, nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide (go find out what carbon monoxide does to the human body...so bad in fact there is an ENTIRE safety industry built around that ONE single colorless odorless gas)

The proof and evidence is in my post! (with links at the bottom showing the governmental studies!!!)

Why you disrespecting me and calling em a horse? I'm a bird baby!

 

[darkstorm]

That's not entirely true.

A buccal (cheek) nicotine test can only determine if nicotine is present, not the amount. A urine nicotine test, however, can determine the levels of nicotine in your system. Based on the nicotine levels in your urine it can be determined if your using a nicotine replacement or nicotine from tobacco, which is higher.

Urine can more accurately determine levels but I doubt there is too much difference between someone that vapes like a train and an occasional smoker, one who chews snus/tobacco, or one on a patch/gum/lozenge. I know the absorption rate is lower in vaping than smoking but someone chain vaping 36ml will probably urine test at the same level as a smoker. (have not seen any data on this but it seems intuitive)

 

[Baldr]

I have life insurance. If I die, the insurance company pays. If they suspect I was trying to cheat them (by buying life insurance and then committing suicide), then they investigate. If they can prove their suspicion, they don't pay off.

Normally, life insurance will not pay out for suicide for a certain amount of time, but after that time has passed it does pay out. The time is usually 2 years, but it varies. Google for "life insurance 2 year rule" for more info.

 

[CommaHolly]

Its impossible to tell if the nicotine in ones system is from a hazardous delivery mechanism such as smoking/chewing or a reduced risk source like patches, gums, ecigs or snus.

Exactly this.

since they can't tell, they treat us all the same.

it sucks, but that's the way it is.

 

[bosun]

Users of tobacco/nicotine are inherently evil. Since the insurance companies are not allowed to beat you with a stick as punishment, they are forced to charge you more money. There's one reason. Another reason is "because they can". A third reason is IF a smoker/tobacco/nicotine user has a shorter life expectancy, then the insurance company will receive less money over the life of the policy. "Life of the policy" being from when you buy it (or start buying it) to when you die and 'cash it in'. If you get a $100,000 policy and pay premiums for twenty years before dieing, then the insurance company gets X amount of money. If you pay premiums for forty years then you pay twice the premiums and the insurance company gets twice the amount of money for the same pay-out.

 

[wharr]

Cigarette companies and Insurance companies are the big players that pad the politicians pockets when they get voted in office. These two big players can do what they want, when they want, and how they want, because the ones that can control what they do, wont because they will find themselves without any support and extra pay in their pockets. This is just my opinion.

 

[ut1205]

It will take a "denial to pay a claim" which results in a lawsuit, maybe with appeals, maybe going to the Supreme Court, to make the final ruling.

 

[Fulgurant]

Exactly this.

since they can't tell, they treat us all the same.

it sucks, but that's the way it is.

There are other tests, though. The problem isn't that they can't tell the difference between nicotine and tobacco users; it's that there hasn't yet been a reason to try to tell the difference. Not yet, anyway.

 

[Whosback]

Basically insurance companies are not basing this off science they are basing it off of social stigma. Nicotine is linked in most people's minds to smoking, smoking is viewed as bad for you and people around you so therefor nicotine = bad and society just accepts it. So insurance companies have an easy way to jack up rates for people. It's easy money that nobody at your insurance company is going to take the time or money to try and correct. Really though they are on your side.

 

[Ranic85]

I don't get this whole insurance thing. Wouldn't buying insurance be just as good as say, starting a savings account used only for emergencies and put what you would pay for in insurance into that account? I mean if you pay insurance for 40 years before you finally use it. I am sure you could just save your own money and wind up with more money in a savings account than from the payout from insurance.

 

[bluecat]

Better question: How can insurance companies be allowed to exist, since they artificially inflate the cost of medical treatment, by removing the competitive element from the market, thus causing the deaths of millions of low-income individuals, simply because they can afford neither the insurance nor the treatment?bYou wonder why an industry based on earning a profit from human suffering is creating human suffering?

Even better question? Why is health insurance put on the onerous of the employer? With HCR happening, it just makes it more troublesome. Why oh why did they make it a rules that the value of the health insurance must be put on a W-2 as well. Pure and simple the government is overstepping their authority, except they seem to think than can give themselves any authority.

In practice though, a low income individual needs only to show up at a hospital. Most state hospitals cannot turn an individual away because of insurance. This is one of the reason leading to increased cost. They have learned (in some cases giving directions by our own government) to go to the hospital for a cold instead of seeing a physician because they would have to pay for it.

Hospitals and their attending physicians have to make up this loss of earning from somewhere... I wonder where it comes from. Don't even get me started on how healthcare professionals, insurance companies and very large corporate employers establish charges and insurance costs. It drives me absolutes insane how the health care industry decides costs for procedures and insurance.

 

[Whosback]

Even better question? Why is health insurance put on the onerous of the employer? With HCR happening, it just makes it more troublesome. Why oh why did they make it a rules that the value of the health insurance must be put on a W-2 as well. Pure and simple the government is overstepping their authority, except they seem to think than can give themselves any authority.

They can since we let them. We are so caught up in the who we ignore the what.

 

[Fulgurant]

I don't get this whole insurance thing. Wouldn't buying insurance be just as good as say, starting a savings account used only for emergencies and put what you would pay for in insurance into that account? I mean if you pay insurance for 40 years before you finally use it. I am sure you could just save your own money and wind up with more money in a savings account than from the payout from insurance.

In the case of life insurance? Yeah, probably.

In the case of home/auto insurance? No, because if someone falls down on your property or you hit them with your car, they could sue you for potentially millions of dollars. And it could happen at any time, long before you've had the opportunity to save anything.

In the case of health insurance? The value of every medical service is touched by the very existence of health insurance. Since patients generally don't pay directly for health care, they don't have any incentive to do without; they make no value judgments about this-or-that treatment, this-or-that potentially unimportant medication. They just grab it up, because hey, someone's paying for it (the insurance) regardless -- whether it's the patient himself or his employer or the government. Therefore demand is permanently rendered effectively infinite, whereas supply dwindles, and will dwindle more as fewer young people decide that the massive investment in time and money to earn a medical degree is no longer worthwhile.

So although you can probably get by with some sort of health-savings' account, you can't get away from the influence of health insurance on the market. And if, god forbid, you ever get truly and deathly sick, there's not much chance you'll be able to pay off the costs comfortably.

 

[bluecat]

I don't get this whole insurance thing. Wouldn't buying insurance be just as good as say, starting a savings account used only for emergencies and put what you would pay for in insurance into that account? I mean if you pay insurance for 40 years before you finally use it. I am sure you could just save your own money and wind up with more money in a savings account than from the payout from insurance.

HSA. Health Savings Account. Was a wonderful means if you were a very healthy individual to lower insurance costs.

 

[bluecat]

They can since we let them. We are so caught up in the who we ignore the what.

Aye that is true.

 

[v1k1ng1001]

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' -Reagan

Ever notice how switching to a less harmful form of nicotine consumption breeds a disdain for government, big pharma and others in pretty short order? Hilarious.

I just want to point out that it was Nixon who dismantled the government-regulated Blue Cross & Blue Shield (which was working just fine) to the predatory HMO system that we find ourselves in today. The idea was that privatization would introduce competition and thus drive down rising health care costs. Instead, what unregulated HMOs did was cherry pick healthy folks while denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions--leading to the crisis in which 1/3 of Americans are uninsured or underinsured. What's more, the growth of costs did not slow, but accelerated as HMOs spent money on iterated corporate bureaucracies dedicated to generating profits (i.e. extract wealth from the insured) and marketing (conservatives continually deny the fact that medicare is orders of magnitude more economically efficient than your average HMO in part because it doesn't advertise).

In other words it's not a question of government/no government intervention, it's a question of intelligent policy that benefits America at large or unintelligent policy that benefits corporations and shareholders at the expense of the American public.

 

[Uncle Willie]

Insurance is based on risk .. if an insurance Company believes that a substance such as nicotine use raises the risk of a claim, those using that substance will be assessed at a higher rate than those that do not ..

It is the same concept as a pre-exisiting condition ..

 

[stevegmu]

Cigarette companies and Insurance companies are the big players that pad the politicians pockets when they get voted in office. These two big players can do what they want, when they want, and how they want, because the ones that can control what they do, wont because they will find themselves without any support and extra pay in their pockets. This is just my opinion.

Can you provide links stating tobacco companies are major donors to politicians? I can provide one that shows they aren't-

Tobacco | OpenSecrets

Odd how those who received the most$ didn't vote for ObamaCare.

 

[Cavediver]

Like it or not, very few nicotine users have never been smokers or users of dip, snuff, etc.

The damage we, as smokers (for the most part) have done to ourselves doesn't just up and disappear the day we quit smoking and start vaping. I've poisoned myself for 20+ years with cigarettes. What are the odds that's going to come back and bite me before it's all said and done?

Also note, for every successful conversion to vaping (at least amongst my friends), there's two or three semi-conversions and a half dozen non-converts. They know how hard it is to quit; they've got years of statistics to back that up. They know that most folks who were users will (eventually) relapse. Can they tell a vaper from a smoker? Probably, but there's no incentive to do so until vaping proves itself to be a widely successful and relatively permanent replacement for smoking.

In summary, it's because they can


FWIW, I think it sucks, but that's the bed I've made for myself. Not that I'm not going to try to change it or anything like that, but it is something I have to live with 'till I can get the nicotine out of my system.

 

[Robino1]

Again, I would like to point out that I said from a 'legal' standpoint.

I personally find it hard to believe that there's not some test that can differentiate whether someone has been smoking or vaping. (Heck, we all know about the several thousand additional chemicals in cigarettes, can't they test for some of them instead?)

I actually have a great deal of faith in our legal system, especially the higher courts. Maybe it's wistful thinking but I like to think that if/when it actually comes to a lawsuit, the insurance company would have to prove that 1) vaping is as dangerous as cigarettes and 2) there's absolutely no way to tell the difference between someone vaping and smoking to justify their higher premiums.

I wonder if lung X-rays would help our fight? If you're still a "smoker" the X-rays would clearly show it.

Just my thoughts.....