# Obamacare and risky behaviour **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 22, 2012, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702 "2012-05-22T11:46:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mrpayday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mrpayday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrpayday)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702/21 "2012-05-24T14:23:06Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > The equivalent service in other countries - no. In a society that wants to provide health care to all citizens, whats the purpose of adding bureaucracy to categorize your clients? In the end, they all get the same health care. Think of it like Medicare in the USA - if you qualify, you qualify. Adding a layer of office staff to figure out if you qualify as A or B - why?? In the end you get the same care. And what - if it turns out you lied or backslided (?) on your nonsmoking, they still have to treat you. > > The purpose of conditions is for a commercial enterprise to find excuses to deny you coverage or charge more. In fact, AFAK most Canadian provincial health cares have no extra charges; it’s paid out of taxes. > > What Canada does, for example - they jack up the taxes on cigarettes. A pack here costs substantially more than in the USA. Taxes on liquor are similarly quite high. > > (According to a tobacco company study, smoking actually saves the system money; people who die early of lung cancer or heart problems save the system a huge amount of money which is usually spent on various chronic problems of the elderly. Not exactly the result they were looking for in the study…) I’m sure they weren’t looking for those results. Anyway smoking kills you instantly and cheaply. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702/22 "2012-05-24T14:38:07Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > [QUOTE=Maus Magill] > My employer provided Health Insurance used to nearly double your premium if you smoked… How was this adjudicated in real life? Was it simply a question on a questionnaire or did they base it off of a nicotine test? If you were paying the smoker rate and one day you call HR and claim that you “quit” and can they drop you down to the nonsmoker rate, how did it work? Did you go in the next day for a drug test and if you passed, bam, or did you have to stay off for X days/weeks/months/years before you could be reclassified? [/QUOTE] During Open Enrollment, you indicated whether you would or would not be using tobacco during the next calendar year. If you said you would not, and you were caught using tobacco, you were subject, not only to the higher premiums, but you could also be sacked for defrauding the company. The lawyers at the open enrollment presentations were scary enough for me to forgo my annual cigar with my father at thanksgiving. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702/23 "2012-05-24T14:46:04Z")
> [@mrpayday](#): > > I’m sure they weren’t looking for those results. > > Anyway smoking kills you instantly and cheaply. Neither instantly nor cheaply. But dead at 65 is still cheaper than years of alzheimers support, stents and angioplasty, gall bladders, arthritis treatments, the odd broken hip and knee replacement, kidney failures and dialysis, osteoporosis treatments, meds galore for 20 years… The US taxpayer is already paying for these outliers through Medicare. My 93-yo stepmother has been smoking, off and on, for most of her life. She’s still healthy and has all her marbles and lives at home. This is the problem with carcinogens, it’s a statistical process. For every anecdote who gets lung cancer, someone will tell you of the 102-yo who says the secret of his long life was a good cigar and a glass of whiskey every day. This is the problem in Canada - my general observation is that those who linger too long in the medical system, rather than dying peacefully in their sleep before their problems develop - they will end up giving all their income and assets to the system, to the nursing home that will take care of them until they do go. The nursing homes love the ones that have a decent income, they charge them far more than the government pays for the ones with no money. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2012, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702/24 "2012-05-24T15:11:40Z")
I think the simple answer to the question is “No”. I don’t believe there’s anything to mandate that smokers have to be charged the same rates or change the standard contract exclusions. “Attempting to commit or committing a felony”, “Acts of war” are standard contract exclusions; a few policies have exclusions for self-inflicted injuries and skydiving and such, but not wearing a seatbelt or helmet is not an exclusion on any policy I’ve seen and I haven’t seen anything on Obamacare to change that. As been noted, some policies are starting to offer carrots and sticks in healthy incentives programs, things like BMI, smoking status, glucose, that can be specifically measured easily as opposed to having someone from the company ride with you to note if you’re wearing a seatbelt. my policy you get a cash refund check if you meet the goals instead of a premium penalty if you don’t, but these again I don’t see anything in Obamacare to encourage or discourage this type of thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamacare-and-risky-behaviour/622702.md?page=1)