Just found out I am going to be charged 50 more a month starting next year in March because I smoke and have insurance through my company. Its a 50% bump, the highest they are allowed to do. (They take 50 or so a paycheck for my insurance, so instead of 100 a month itll be 150)
Kind of sucks.
If I cancel my insurance through them and go with a different company, I am reading almost all insurance companies are now charging extra for smokers so no point in switching, id most likely have to pay more upfront than I pay now even with the smokers charge added. (We get a discount on insurance going through our company)
Cant not have health insurance or I have to pay even more at tax time, I have gone to the doctor once when I had the flu 3 years ago and 1 tylenol and a 2 hour visit cost me nearly 4000.00 dollars, thats the only time in 8 years ive gone in. I do understand smokers have more health problems but not EVERYONE of them does or chain smokes until their lungs are black.
I always have the option of saying I am a non smoker, if they call my primary (which I dont have) they would confirm I am a non smoker because I have never visited and said I was a smoker. But, that stuff always catches up with you, then id owe all the inbetween money I hadnt paid.
Kind of sucks ;P I am annoyed with my company. End of rant 
With the way insurance seems to work nowadays if its not a routine appointment, its mostly out of pocket anyway =/
Sure they might cover an initial 1500, then 15% or whatever it is but if its lung cancer or something similar, im owing tens of thousands anyway even with insurance.
Ill probably just quit, its not hard to do and I pretty much only smoke as a social thing nowadays for something to do while standing around at work.
I just really dislike companys/governments infringing on me 
I did find out, smoking in the car with under 18 is a secondary offence which means they cannot pull you over for it, they can only cite you if they pull you over for something else. (traffic violation) in my state. Not that im saying its good to smoke with kids in the car, just was something I found out while looking through everything on the legality of discriminating against smokers. (people drink, they should pay more too due to all the diseases that come along with that and the drunk driving accidents. People who do extreme sports should also pay more, they have more injury and so on. Its kind of stupid to charge smokers more at all and not anyone else.) We already pay out the butt in taxes for cigarettes.
@Kirmie2010 wrote:With the way insurance seems to work nowadays if its not a routine appointment, its mostly out of pocket anyway =/
Sure they might cover an initial 1500, then 15% or whatever it is but if its lung cancer or something similar, im owing tens of thousands anyway even with insurance.
Ill probably just quit, its not hard to do and I pretty much only smoke as a social thing nowadays for something to do while standing around at work.
I just really dislike companys/governments infringing on me
I did find out, smoking in the car with under 18 is a secondary offence which means they cannot pull you over for it, they can only cite you if they pull you over for something else. (traffic violation) in my state. Not that im saying its good to smoke with kids in the car, just was something I found out while looking through everything on the legality of discriminating against smokers. (people drink, they should pay more too due to all the diseases that come along with that and the drunk driving accidents. People who do extreme sports should also pay more, they have more injury and so on. Its kind of stupid to charge smokers more at all and not anyone else.) We already pay out the butt in taxes for cigarettes.
There is no discrimination or infringement on anyone's rights. Nobody is forcing you to stop smoking. This policy is simply based on actuarial calculations and profit. Smokers as a group end up having more health problems throughout their lifetime thus cost the insurance company more. Insurance companies don't consider individual situations when they calculate insurance premiums.
@Kirmie2010 wrote:With the way insurance seems to work nowadays if its not a routine appointment, its mostly out of pocket anyway =/
This is so true. Except for the annual exams which are fully covered by insurance (I think it's the law now), every doctor's visit I've had has wound up costing me well over $100; most around $150. Sometimes I wonder why I bother paying for insurance since it doesn't cover anything anyway.
Quicksilver $10,000 | Better Balance Rewards $2000 | Sallie Mae $3500 | Freedom $3500oh we pay for useless insurance because if we dont, we have to pay more than the useless insurance costs at tax time in penalty (or whatever they want to call it)
awesome!
Yeah I think the annual exams are covered, so if they find anything they can have you come back and pay out of pocket to have whatever they found fixed.
I dunno, I might be missing the good part in all of this new healthcare stuff I liked it better when you just went in, paid a 20 dollar copay and had whatever it was checked out or fixed. Not 15 seperate bills for every individual thing that happen and only some of those being covered by insurance.
My hospital bill cost near 4000 because I had to pay for the lady who listened to my lungs, paid for the blood test and the lady who drew the blood (Yeah, its seperate), paid for the lady who gave me the tylenol, paid for the tylenol, paid for being admitted into a room, paid for the time I was in that room, paid for the doctor to come in and say I should be fine and whatever else im forgetting. Then the prescriptions I was given I could only get 1 of 3. Anti viral is not covered by insurance, I didnt have 700 dollars for it, pills for fever I couldnt afford, covered by insurance but still 100 something dollars then the pills that make it impossible to throw up cost me 23 dollars because the generic was on the prescription list.
Without my insurance, I would of paid 150 dollars more, because thats whats covered for an urgent visit. I did see the 150 deduction in my itemized bills. (the bills came in over the next few weeks, because its all seperate billings)
Im just a complainer this week haha.
How much is the penalty for not having insurance? I thought it was like $100 or something? I know some people that would rather just pay the penalty because it's way cheaper than insurance.
Was it not always this bad?
The problem with hospitals is that all the doctors are outsourced so you wind up with separate bills for each one and then lab work is also sent out so that's a separate bill too. Maybe even some of the pharmacists in hospitals are farmed out too now? The hospital I worked at back in 2004 had pharmacists on staff but I know pretty much all doctors were contracted out.
For me, to go to urgent care (where I usually wind up going unless it's my gyno), costs at least $150. All the urgent care places also farm out the docs so it winds up costing me way more. Plus the labwork is sent out (usually to Labcorp and it's not usually that expensive; one lab test was like only $5) so that's another separate bill. In network urgent care wound up costing me about $100 plus the prescription cost ($4 since it was on Target's cheap list). Out of network urgent care costs about $150 (not really that huge of a difference if you think about it).