NBC News Philadelphia on Obamacare and "Smoking"

[rothenbj]

Philly's NBC station is doing 5 days of reports about ACA and you. Tonight it was about smoking. They didn't mention anything about other tobacco use other than smoking so they really didn't spell out all that would be affected. States that are being funded for Obamacare, such as PA and NJ, will be required to provide quit smoking drugs to anyone who wants them. That sounds like a major win for BP. They didn't mention for how long, but an argument could be made for long term use which would make the drug companies very, very happy.

Then they dropped the bomb that shocked me. As of January 1st, they said the insurance companies could add a 50% premium increase (which I knew) for ANYONE WHO LIVES IN A HOUSEHOLD WHERE THERE IS A SMOKER. I'm hoping that they put the video up on their website later tonight as I'd like to link to it.

The fascinating aspect of this to me is that unless the do CO testing, no tobacco testing will identify smokers as long as they're getting prescription NRT.

 

[rothenbj]

Video | NBC 10 Philadelphia

 

[MiamiGuy]

NRT has already been approved for long-term use. See here: FDA: OK to use nicotine replacement therapies for longer than 12 weeks - CBS News (from 4/1/13)

 

[rothenbj]

I'm familiar with that but the question arises as to whether the insurance companies will be able to place a limit on their responsibilities to pay for your supply. I can see them doing what they did in the past, cutting you off after the first 12 weeks. I would contend that the disease of "nicotine addiction" (I know that's insane) is so horrific that,like other incurable diseases, it requires continuous treatment with NRT making cotinine tests obsolete in testing for smoking or any of the less expensive and orders of magnitude safer tobacco/nicotine products.