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I am a state employee and received this interesting piece in the mail last week:
The state of NC passed this law in April that takes effect in July 2010.
Basically, if you are a smoker or overweight, you will only be able to enroll in the 70/30 plan. The 80/20 will no longer be an option for you.
You can get an exemption if you are in a tobacco cession program or a weight reduction program, with doctor provided proof.
The state will also begin having on-site nicotine testing for employees enrolled in the 80/20 plan. If you fail, you are put into the 70/30 plan for the rest of the year and forfeit any deductibles you may have paid.
And the kicker...The state has also declared it will no longer participate in HIPPA...since it is "self-funded". (there is a provision in the law that permits government self-funded programs to opt-out.)
No HIPPA protection? Who's next? Diabetics? Your retarded kid? People with weak genetic lines (like the nazis did)? Its out of your hands now. Where do we draw the line?
I find it ironic that the state will have "smoker police" come to your workplace and test you for nicotine, yet there is no pre-employment or random drug testing. So smoke a doobie and snort a line, just don't light up that Marlboro afterwards. WTF?
I understand smokers and fat people cost more to insure. Okay, I get it. And I'm not overweight or a smoker, but I have a HUGE problem with freedom being taken away. For me, its maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...
This is what happens when the government has control of your healthcare. Be forewarned.
And I'm not overweight or a smoker, but I have a HUGE problem with freedom being taken away. For me, its maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon...
This is what happens when the government has control of your healthcare. Be forewarned.
What freedom, exactly, is being taken away? People still have the freedom to smoke, and be obese, but there are consequences to those choices. Don't most private insurers have those same clauses? When I had employer insurance, years ago, smokers paid a higher premium. Is that not true any more?
Location: Between Belmont & Cramerton, North Carolina
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I think the plan is very sensible and follows a practice that has been popular with private companies for a long time. You're still free to smoke and stay fat as long as you want only that you have to pay a price for it.
And... if you hate the government so much why don't you switch over to the private industry to check out if it's really better? Drama queen.
If you haven't stepped forward and declared your political affiliations, your responses to this thread will do it for you. This example is a litmus test, in my opinion, for what letter goes on your voter registration card.
The statement of there being no freedom taken away is naive and biased. If you have to pay for a freedom, it's not a freedom.
With this thinking, we should all have meters on our toilets to measure how much we crap every month and be billed accordingly for sewer services. We should all wear pedometers to count our paces on a yearly basis to determine how much we need to contribute to the sidewalk program. We should have GPS tracking devices to measure how far we drive to pay our share of the roads (oops, can't joke about that one...it's already proposed in "real" life). They should develop sight meters to gauge how often we look at art and we should have to pay more if we look at it and enjoy it more.
The list goes on and on. Yeah, some of it is funny talk and meant to be facetious. But like uber says, where does it stop? Who is the government to tell us what weight we should be? Who are they to tell us when/where/how/what to do anything that is currently legal? So you say it costs the program more to support those people who may partake in anything other than a yoga-filled jogging lifestyle. Maybe so under the current billing scam that our system is set up as. Maybe the problem lies with the fact that medical folks are allowed to get away with highway robbery...maybe it's that insurance costs are comically high for medical professionals because scum-sucking lawyers always find an angle to sue from--and win. Why don't we focus our efforts and energy on those core issues rather than hinder our freedom? Some would throw the BS excuse of "that's capitalism" at it. I guess they'd rather live a rich but constrained life rather than a free one.
And for the record, I'm neither overweight nor a smoker.
The Office for Civil Rights enforces the HIPAA Privacy Rule, which protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information, and the confidentiality provisions of the Patient Safety Rule, which protect identifiable information being used to analyze patient safety events and improve patient safety.
Or, as it commonly does, Wikipedia offers some easier to understand explanations: Click Here
I'm not even going to begin to try to explain it as I honestly don't know!
If you have to pay for a freedom, it's not a freedom.
I don't know what you mean here. You are free own property but you must pay for it. You even have to continue to pay taxes for that property forever, even after your mortgage is paid. You are free to own a car, have children, pets, eat dinner out, go to the movies, take a vacation, buy clothes, books, toys, electronics....but you still have to pay to exercise those freedoms because I don't know of any free homes or free vacations or places to go to get free steak dinner whenever I want. And hey, since I am free to own a TV, where do I place my order for my free one? I'd like at least a 46 inch LCD please.
I suggest you meant to say RIGHT. We do not pay for our rights, they are ours from birth. You really have to stretch to the point of breaking logic to consider health insurance a right as is the right to free speech or the right to bear arms (but you still have to pay for your gun and license so even that 'right' comes with a cost)....but you are free to purchase it or not, for now. Health care is completely different than health insurance but still not a right.
As for the smokers and the obese...no different than charging habitual speeders higher insurance rates. I like my rates as low as I can get them so I don't speed. I don't want to pay extra for people who do speed. I also don't smoke and am not obese. I don't have any problem with those folks paying extra for their choices...after all, they are free to do so or not. Is it not infringing on my 'freedom' to demand my dollars to pay their bad habits?
Private insurance does surcharges for smokers unless they enter a smoke cessation program. I have never heard of a surcharge for overweight people. Where exactly do you draw the line for overweight? Are we talking slightly overweight, morbidly obese? At least for smoking either you smoke or you don't.
Ah come on guys...we all know what they mean when they say "over-weight". At least I would think they mean and unhealthy weight where it puts a strain on your body.
It's a matter of being smart as far as any insurance company goes. Why take a risk covering a person who smokes or is an unhealthy weight?? JMO!!!
I don't get the overweight thing either. Where will they draw the line? What about people who gain weight after pregnancy. Or gained weight after a death of a loved one for a couple years? Or was in a traumatic car accident?
How about athletes who aren't overweight but the number on the scale is very high?
Or the elderly who maybe gain some weight as they age?
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