Smoker faces choice
LANSING, Mich. — Eric Jones has an incentive to end his trips to the party store for cigarette tubes and tobacco, the roll-your-own supplies used to fill his pack-a-day habit.
The 40-year-old has no health insurance from his $9-an-hour job at an ice-manufacturing plant in Lansing. Under the federal health care law, he’s eligible for help from the government to buy insurance.
But to qualify, he’ll almost certainly have to quit smoking.
A baseline insurance plan could cost Jones, who makes $22,000 working seasonally from February to November, $775 a year in premiums. Or he could pay no premiums in the cheapest plan, which has higher deductibles and copayments.
Yet if he keeps smoking, he could face an annual financial penalty ranging from $1,600 to $1,900 that will make coverage unaffordable.
“I’d rather have health coverage than cigarettes, if it comes down to it,” Jones said.
The law requires insurers to accept all applicants regardless of pre-existing medical problems. But it also allows them to charge smokers premiums that are up to 50 percent higher than those offered non-smokers — a way for insurers to ward off bad risks.
Jones said he should be taking medications for gout, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and severe acid reflux but just suffers through his conditions.
“I can’t afford them,” he said. “So I just don’t take them.”
Jones stopped smoking about four years ago with no help from nicotine patches or gum. But he started up again this year.
Nearly one of every five U.S. adults smokes. That share is higher among lower-income people such as Jones, who are more likely to work in jobs that do not offer health insurance and are a major reason the law was enacted. The smoking penalty has drawn criticism for effectively pricing people out of insurance.
