07:52 – Winter has definitely arrived in Winston-Salem. The overnight low was 23F (-5C) and our high today is to be around 41F (5C). We got the gas logs in the den cleaned out yesterday and lit the pilot light. Running unvented on low, they put out considerable heat. On high, they put out as much heat as the furnace. We tend to get ice storms rather than snow around here, and ice storms tend to cause power failures. With the gas logs, we can at least stay warm.
I’m building subassemblies for chemistry kits today.
12:02 – Of the many social-engineering features of Obamacare, here’s the one that offends me the most: ObamaCare slams smokers with sky-high premium costs, could backfire
Under Obamacare, you pay the standard premium if you’ve had eight heart attacks. You pay the standard premium if you are an alcoholic with terminal liver failure. Even if you’re still drinking a bottle of hard liquor a day. You pay the standard premium if you’re a heroin addict with AIDS and multiple organ failure, even if you’re still shooting heroin. But don’t dare use any tobacco products at all, or you’ll be assessed a 50% premium increase, and subsidies, even if you’re otherwise eligible, cannot be applied to that 50% increase. FTA:
“In a worst-case scenario, an older couple who smokes could be “literally impoverished” by ObamaCare premiums, said the report. That couple could pay an $11,352 health care premium, or one-half their annual income of $23,000. By comparison, a non-smoking person over 59 years old would pay 90 percent less, or just $952 after federal subsidies.”
What particularly annoys me is that I smoke a pipe, but they’ll lump me in with cigarette smokers. As any honest actuary will tell you, pipe smokers have fewer health problems than non-smokers, and pipe smokers live longer than non-smokers. That’s why, before political correctness and the demonizing of tobacco, insurance companies did not charge pipe smokers higher premiums for health or life insurance than they charged non-smokers. For that matter, they rated people who smoked 10 cigarettes a day or less as non-smokers, because there is absolutely zero evidence that people who smoke half a pack a day or less are any less healthy than non-smokers. That’s reality. But that son of a bitch in the Oval Office wants me to pay 50% more for health insurance. Not that we’d even be eligible for any subsidies, of course. Bastard.