US smokers pay umpteen taxes, for the MSA and higher insurance premiums

Health insurance companies in the US would be allowed to set their premiums for smokers at 1.5 times the level of those for non-smokers under proposed new rules.

According to a story by N.C. Aizenman for the Washington Post, the Obama administration proposed new rules on Tuesday that would loosen some of its 2010 health-care-law mandates on insurers while tightening others.

But while the law permits insurers generally to set their premiums for tobacco users higher than those for non-smokers, they wouldn’t be allowed to do so in a case where smokers were enrolled in smoking-cessation programs.

This and other changes were included in the fine print of three regulations the Department of Health and Human Services proposed to flesh out key parts of the statute. For the most part, the regulations, which will be open for comment until December 26, would simply codify mandates in the law or in earlier administration guidance.