[gogeo]

Moral hazard says that whenever you lower the negative consequences of an event, you make that event more likely to happen. To what degree would behavior be changed if unhealthy lifestyle choices were rated for premium?

Now flip that...and you've made the case that the changes made in the past 60 years regarding medical insurance have changed the decision making process of people for the worse. That's a consequence of removing economic considerations from health care.

[Lucky Dog]

That's a consequence of removing economic considerations from health care.

I'm afraid you'll have to offer me more of a connection to the point.

My position was simply that insurance premiums should be, and for a great percentage of activities, are, based upon the risk assumed by the insurance provider. The argument at hand was this situation should be even more the case, i.e., smoking, voluntary obesity, and other higher risk lifestyle choices should bear even more of a premium increase to cover the increased risk.

If your issue with "moral hazard" is that failure to increase the premium for these higher risk health choices has increased their likelihood, then I can not, nor would I, argue.

However, my position is strickly based in statistical probability. That is to say, there should be no insurance penalty for an activity or lifestyle choice that has no statistically discernable increase in risk.