[eleni121]

If we're going to maintain a private health care insurance system insurers ought to be able to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions and risky behavior on the part of their customers.

The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers. We all pay for smokers' behavior and their kids are affected the worst since they have no way to stop what their parents are doing.

Should we give a liver to an alcoholic who need a transplant?

[Gabz]

Insurance companies already discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions and behavior of their customers.

The effects of smoking are NOT the most expensive costs incurred by insurers. Smokers generally pay higher premiums than non-smokers .

[Ramius]

The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers.

That is absolutely not true. In fact it is intuitively ridiculous. Of all the cancers... lung cancer is pretty cheap. There is no practical treatment. Other cancers are orders of magnitude more expensive, mainly because they ~are~ treatable. Same with other sorts of organ failure. There are far more expensive ways to spend time as an older person without the relative cheap things supposedly endemic to smokers.

[Publius6961]

The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers. We all pay for smokers' behavior and their kids are affected the worst since they have no way to stop what their parents are doing.

You're entitled to your own prejudices, but not to your own facts.

The most expensive costs are the result of AIDS and the walking whales (heart disease).

Second hand smoke is not even on the radar.

[Publius6961]

Should we give a liver to an alcoholic who need a transplant?

Changing the subject is a sure sign of a losing argument.

I don't think we should pay for the nutcase rockclimber who takes a fall and becomes a quadriplegic, either, but this thread is about second hand smoke. To tough to focus with a losing argument?

[markman46]

If we're going to maintain a private health care insurance system insurers ought to be able to discriminate on the basis of pre-existing conditions and risky behavior on the part of their customers.

it are ready done by most if not all ins co for pre-ex conditions, what risky behaviors do you suggest?

Should we give a liver to an alcoholic who need a transplant?

that is already being done all the time.

[gidget7]

"The effects of smoking are the most expensive costs incurred by insurers."


Wrong, smokers don't even come close to being the most expensive. By and large, they are in fact, among the healthiest, and the happiest. Obesity and homosexuality (THE most expensive deathstyle), as well as excessive alcohol, are all much more expensive, as far as costs incurred, and all die much younger than smokers, so why is it you and the government are so hell bent on singling out and laying everything, as well as the cost of everything, on the back of smokers?? Just once, I would love an honest answer to that.