Smokers Would Pay More For Insurance, Non-Smokers Less, if Md. Allows Tobacco-Use Surcharge
Low-income Marylanders could see the greatest impact if the legislature updates the state health exchange’s online platform to allow insurance carriers to add surcharges to tobacco users’ premiums, state insurance officials said Tuesday.
“There is no question that people who are at the lower levels of income, people who have other challenges that they’re dealing with, people who have oftentimes been least able to stop smoking, are the people who will have the greatest impact with respect to a surcharge because that [money] means more to them,” Maryland Insurance Administration Commissioner Kathleen A. Birrane told the House Health and Government Operations Committee at an afternoon hearing.
Tobacco use is one of four factors under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that insurance carriers can use to place surcharges on a plan enrollee’s premium before any subsidies are applied.
According to Birrane, when the ACA and Maryland Health Benefit Exchange (MHBE) began in 2014, three of six providers in the individual market and five of 13 in the small group market chose to use the tobacco-use rating factor.
Read more: https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/10/13/smokers-would-pay-more-for-insurance-non-smokers-less-if-md-allows-tobacco-use-surcharge/