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?
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.
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.
Oh, she is. In ways that make money meaningless.
I really do understand your frustration. I just disagree that the solution lies in that direction.
Sometimes I grind my teeth and wish that liberals and enviro-wackos had to pay more than we do for gas. After all, it is their policies that are directly responsible for the current cost of energy. Not a great analogy, but it has some validity.
It just gets worse.
A woman with one child who's physically disabled -- legitimately -- gets a set amount of SSI-D for herself and the first child. If she has a second child either before or during her disability, the amount for the first is cut in half.
If a woman on welfare has more than one child, the benefits are NOT cut the way they are for disability.
The liberal cries of "taking care of children!" are totally bogus.