Am I an insane conspiracy nut ...healthcare [View All]

[pipoman]

I have had access to affordable group insurance for a few years now. Benefits renewal is this month. My wife and I very seldom are ill and have never met our deductible. We smoke cigarettes and apparently our insurance is going up $1,500 per year.

My first reaction was, 'are they going to raise rates on the fat people too?'...well of coarse not...

The conspiracy I speak of...apparently raising rates on smokers has some case law behind it. Combined with a health care bill with a requirement to maintain insurance. This sounds of insurance/government working for different reasons to the same conclusion. The insurance companies rating up smokers in group insurance, thus creating more profit. The government allowing tobacco to be taxed or priced out of existence...for the public good of coarse. Then to replace the lost revenue, pot will be legalized with zillions of dollars of taxation and easy money as the motivator. The insurance companies will pee everyone periodically and if you been tokin' you pay out the ass for your insurance. Then all the other risk groups will be raised 10 times beyond the actuarial risk factor...everybody wins in the end!! It is just that as far as I know this is the only condition ever put on group insurance which required the risk group within the group to be assessed higher rates based on some activity aside from those related to job duties. Will the next group of higher risk people be the obese, or recreational motorcyclists, or bicyclists, or couch potatoes...

Reminds me of this old poem:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.--Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

For the record, I have not been following the health care debate as closely as I should be. I haven't been following the health care threads here on DU either.