Posted on 07/20/2006 4:35:25 AM PDT by rdax
A new WSJ.com/Harris health-care poll indicates growing U.S. support for charging higher insurance premiums or out-of-pockets medical costs to people with unhealthy lifestyles.
The online survey of 2,325 U.S. adults found that 53% of Americans think it is fair to ask people with unhealthy lifestyles to pay higher insurance premiums than people with healthy lifestyles, while 32% said it would be unfair. When asked the same question in 2003, 37% said it would be fair, while 45% said it would be unfair. Healthy lifestyles were described as not smoking, exercising frequently and controlling one's weight.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Do you understand the term OPM?
Statistics can be used to 'prove' virtually anything. There are liars, damned liars, and statisticians.
I am not arguing that smoking, or being fat are necessarily good for you, just that at some point, insurance companies can find an excuse to not insure anyone, or at least raise their rates--especially if enough 'studies' are conducted.
The time honored method has been to insure most, risk assess the members of the pool and charge accordingly, and to give premium discounts to those who are less of a risk.
I think anyone who feels obesity should be 'punished' should dig up the BMI numbers and check where they are. When I was 18, I was 6'1" and weighed 240, but there was no way anyone who looked at me would have considered me 'fat'. The BMI chart (ancestor of today's formula) would have had me morbidly obese.
It is the skim that allows for graft, corruption, and "bridges to nowhere"! Without it, we might still have a future in this country!
On the contrary.
One of my part time employees is 100 pounds overweight. Every day, she smokes a pack of cigarettes and brings in food from McDonalds or Burger King. She goes out drinking 2-3 times per week. She sleeeps with at least two different people each week. (Recently she told me that she was being a "good girl" because she has been dating a guy for almost two weeks and has not yet had sex.)
When she went to the hospital Monday, she came back to work asking me for an advance on her paycheck so she could pay for her prescription medication. I told her 'no.'
She went to the welfare office, where she got the money for the prescription and probably approval for her hospital bills to be paid.
SHE is the liberal. SHE wants someone else to subsidize her unhealthy lifestyle.
Why shouldn't she have to bear the burden of certain cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and several types of VD?
I'd be more in support of it if I didn't think it was simply an excuse to raise rates and impose a political agenda. Those engaging in risky sexual lifestyles won't have to worry, but low-carb lifestyle Freepers beware...
The insurance commission. That must be an interesting group of big thinkers.
Someone who is grossly overweight has, in my opinion, unhealthy eating habits. Spare me the whining about glandular problems and big bones. Cigarette smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, lack of even minimal exercise are all evident with a cursory physical exam.
Why is it fair to charge me a higher insurance premium because I live in a community with an above average population of drunks and drug addicts, (NYS Community Rating Law) but it's unfair to charge more to individuals who are drinking and drugging themselves into an early grave?
Truly, Thank GOD! we do not live in a democracy.
if she gets a Super Sized meal... she could claim to the insurance company a perfectly balanced diet of 6 oz of vegetables (fries), 2 servings of grain (bun), 3-4 oz of meat, and 2 oz dairy. They won't give a whit about her sexual activity because of PC. Weight? Yeah right, as if that's gonna fly in a country where 2/3rds of us are overweight, the uproar's going to be worse than if insurance companies tried to make homosexuality a liability.
Don't be fooled. If this is imposed, this is just free reign to arbitrarily increase rates. Get sick even once, and they'll suddenly find that you are living a horribly unhealthy lifestyle.
how about insurance not bear the brunt of the operating costs of hospitals and medical facilites due to so many people that never bother to pay their medical bills?
we'd all get much lower insurance rates then.
Since when is life fair?
Again, do you seriously think persons like this didn't exist when health insurance was $10 a week? In 1974 I was paying $10 a week for my group insurance. Now I am paying $125 a week. Show me all those skinny people that didn't smoke & drink in 1974.
Look at it this way, we know that costs have gone higher since then. So, what has changed? Living habits or the mechanism of the market?
Of course this employee's lifestyle costs everyone. Everyone costs everyone else in some fashion. Part of the human condition. But is that the real reason medical care is so expensive? Or does it just piss you off knowing that you pay more for things in life because others are less productive members of society than you? It does me, but I'm not going to make things worse by getting even with them.
It feels good to think that this woman ought to pay,pay, pay. Only seems fair. But, the real question is, will it change the mess the system is in? No. Not in the least. Not for the better anyway.
There will always be people who get more for doing less, but screwing them at the expense of fixing the systemic problems of the health care market will net you and I nothing.
Do you support cigarette taxes to pay for the health care costs associated with smoking? You can't very well support those taxes if the government can't be trusted with the money.
Private pilots, sky divers, etc. will have a hard time getting life insurance, and if they do find a company that will cover them, they will pay out the wazoo for it. Smokers, heavy drinkers, and other unhealthy habits are already factored into a person's cost of health insurance premiums. You smoke, you pay more.
Why this poll is news is beyond me. Insurance companies have been doing this for years, and it's never been a secret.
For example, I am a technical scuba diver (overhead environments, mixed gases, etc.), accept the fact that my activities place me at higher risk, and understand why my life insurance costs more. On the other hand, there is no data to support raising premiums on ordinary recreational divers, who constitute about 99% of scuba divers, yet these individuals are also subject to a surcharge.
And of course, the same people who rub their hands with glee at surcharging smokers would be up in arms at surcharging gay men, since smoking is not politically correct, while homosexuality is.
No. In an ideal world, smokers would "pay" by having their benefits cut or their insurance premiums raised.
Why don't you and a few of your perfect friends just self insure or start your own little company?
What do estimate the chances of this happening are, vs smokers ending up paying the cigarette taxes and higher insurance premiums?
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