DescentBB

Ever heard the one that says that smokers cause high health insurance? Well if that was in any shape or form true then health insurance would be going down. There are quite a few less smokers now than 20 years ago and health insurance is going through the roof.

Critical thinking is frowned upon in this day and age but I still have a tendency to do it every now and then. I guess I better enjoy it while it is still legal.

It may not go done for a while since all the smokers from 40 years ago are old now and need all the health care from smoking for 30+ years. In 20 years or so it should be down to nothing because less people have smoked.

Well the point is is there are less people smoking not more and health insurance rates are skyrocketing. If anything they should be the same. Even 40 years ago there wasn't a dramatic increase in smoking.

Quite a few people get cancer and other expensive to treat diseases and they have never smoked.

The heath insurance industry and the socialists are just looking for a scapegoat not unlike those other socialists, the nazis.

Oh by the way, did anyone know the nazis were also anti-smokers?

Critical thinkers also can do research and provide numbers for useful debate.

Im pretty sure someone isn't reading those numbers right.

And, Godwin's law.

There should be a law against invoking that stupid law.

Expecting insurance prices to go down because there are now fewer smokers ... is like expecting the price of gas to go down because because there are fewer car accidents .... It's not gonna happen.

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Bet51987 wrote:

TechPro wrote:Expecting insurance prices to go down because there are now fewer smokers ... is like expecting the price of gas to go down because because there are fewer car accidents .... It's not gonna happen.

Which is why health care reform, despite republican resistance, is neccessary.

Bee

Do you mean someone should write legislation that actually works toward reducing consumer costs or just sign the legislation the Democrats wrote that doesn't really do that but they say it does?

Will beats me to everything I want to say.
Save some for the little people, Will.

No I expected insurance premiums to go down because the price of cigarettes went from 55 cents a pack to around 5 bucks.

Yea, but if there are less people smoking…that kinda defeats that point.

Well first we're assuming that there's actually less smokers now than there were. I'm not entirely sure if that's true or not. Their profits seem to be growing each year. However,I do distinctly remember the reason for the 1000% increase on tobacco being specifically for the healthcare coverage of smokers. From then till now that translates into a hellova lot of money and I haven't heard jack of it mentioned yet.

Because it was a lie.

LOL ok since we're on the same page I'll go back and sit down

TechPro wrote:Expecting insurance prices to go down because there are now fewer smokers ... is like expecting the price of gas to go down because because there are fewer car accidents .... It's not gonna happen.

That is exactly what I am saying. Smoking has nothing to do with the price of health insurance. It is just an excuse to charge smokers more or use them as a scapegoat. The propaganda machine also targets overweight people, etc... blaming sick people (the customers) for the cost of health care.

For an in depth discussion on some reasons heath insurance is going up go here. Looks like government meddling (go figure) is causing most of it.

Notice the monopolies government created through regulation. You can't even use an insurance company that is not "licensed" by your state. Sickening.

You see monopolies are just plain bad, regardless of if they are government monopolies or private monopolies. What we have now are government sanctioned private monopolies, so I fail to see how the current government plan is going to make a difference either way.
Best case: we end up with a duopoly.
Worst case: we end up with a different but equally horrible government monopoly.

Either way nothing will improve till we destroy the monopolies and drag the rest of the industry kicking and screaming back to the free market where they belong.

Sick people are not the reason for high “health care” costs.

Sick people are the reason for high “health insurance” costs.

Since most people get their health care thru insurance…

Insurance is the reason for high health costs.