Just a few unhealthy lifestyles...
Posted on 10/11/2007 2:35:03 AM PDT by tlb
Excellent point. I've often wondered why legislative (city and state) bodies NEVER evaluate the enormously higher costs to their healthcare programs and retirement payouts when they add "partners" as beneficiaries. Actuaries should be solicited to put this forward during the public policy consideration process since the average AIDs "victim" cost is horrendously high, including and especially the added prescription costs for HIV positive patients.
And the news media totally ignores these implicatioins as well. The general public would be shocked to learn the cost burdens associated with the addition of homosexual males and their partners into the health care system. Of course, we know who picks up the tab...
But I bet that if you admit to having firearms at home, the rate will go up also.
But it hasn't been spent wisely. It's been a cash cow for the lefties and their social programs, but even many freepers refuse to see that. After all, it's not THEIR ox that's being gored ... yet.
I don’t really have a huge problem with this, and I can’t believe so many here do. These insurance companies are private businesses. Some of their insured are going to end up costing them a lot more than others, and they can get a pretty good picture of who these people are going to be by looking at various risk factors. When they do this, what they are really doing is spreading the costs out in a more equitable fashion, making those likely to cost them more pay more. This way, healthy people are having to subsidize unhealthy people less. That actually seems pretty fair and reasonable to me. If insurance companies are forced to just charge everyone the same, that seems like Robin Hood socialism to me, not at all conservative.
We’re going to see more and more of this type of stuff. What it really boils down to though has little to do with fairness though. It’s all about money. These “discounts” we got really weren’t discounts. My premiums still went up slightly the year they put these policies in effect for my employer sponsored health insurance. I didn’t get to pay less that year, even though I got close to the maximum “discount.” My premiums would have gone up more if they didn’t have the “healthy living discounts,” but that $420 a month I have to pay for family coverage with no dental insurance still hurts. The thing is that health insurance is just getting ungodly expensive, with premiums increasing at a rate far exceeding normal inflation and average annual wage increases. This has been going on for years and there is no relief in sight. If something doesn’t change within a few decades our “employer sponsored” health insurance premiums will exceed what our employers pay us in total. If health insurance premiums go up an average of 10% and wages an average of 4%, sooner or later health insurance premiums will exceed wages. We’ll never get to that point because that would be an untenable situation, but we are likely to see health insurance premiums increase at a rate that far out paces wage increases for quite some time and there will be all sorts of monkeying around with the way employer sponsored health insurance works to try to alleviate the problems some.
It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with health insurance in the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just know we probably won’t like it.
“I’m a non-smoker, and few of my associates smoke. This makes sense actually, but you have to wonder how far the principle will be extended. What is politically incorrect enough to penalize, and what isn’t.”
Fine. Apply this to people who are:
Alcoholics
Drug addicts (including prescription drugs)
People who’s poor eating habits and lack of exercise will lead to high cholesteral, diabetes, stroke, and heart attack, along with hip replacements and other sundry ills.
People who will be prone to repetitive stress syndrom.
People who will age and require hip replacements and pacemakers
People who engage in dangerous sports like skiing and rock climbing
Any woman who plans on having kids while employed by said company and will require all prenatal care, work leave, and increased costs post delivery
Anyone who requires drugs prsecribed by therapists (prozac, et. al.)
You can stop with the myth that smokers are this enormous drain on insurance companies. PEOPLE are drains on insurance companies.
If you insist on making smokers second class citizens, then give them protected status, as they deserve, and stop parroting the nonsense insurance companies cram down our throats, all the while reducing the amount they have to spend on us daily. Health insurance is the biggest scam going, and I would walk out the second any company i worked for instuted this policy, regardless if I smoked or not.
As conservatives, we normally say that we are for personal responsibility. In the insurance context, I would support increased rates for those who, through voluntary conduct, create higher risks for themselves and thus their insurance provider. If smoking creates higher health costs (I’m not sure whether this is true. If smokers die earlier, seems they may cost LESS.) then as a voluntary behavior (Smoking isn’t addictive, is it?) it should cause higher rates. Same for extreme sports, etc. Being overweight has a genetic component, I believe, but overeating and refusing to exercise are not gene-based characteristics. As for other genetic characteristics (tendency to heart disease, for example) I think those risks should be spread across the insureds since there is no choice there.
For what it’s worth (about what you are paying for it).
Just a few unhealthy lifestyles...
Those at high risk of contracting AIDS will never be outed this way.
Some places says that if you have smoked in the LAST SIX 6 YEARS you are still to be classified as an active smoker.
It will be expanded to overweight employees, diabetic employees, employees with high blood pressure, employees with high cholesterol etc. What you won’t see is the rates rise for employees who have unprotected sex, engage in homosexual behaviors, ride motorcycles and bikes without helmets, drink in excess, take drugs, are hooked on prescription drugs etc. Only the politically incorrect behaviors will be penalized like eating a twinkie. Behaviors that are practiced by the Hollywood elite and Washington politicians will never be demonized. Unless they are overweight.
My husband’s company already has this in practice. Every year the employees and their spouses have to go in to be weighed, have their BMI taken, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels measured. We have a $5000 deductible per individual per year as it is. This doesn’t include prescription and doctor visit co-pays. We pay a little over $300 a month for the insurance which I do not think is high but we have to pay alot out of pocket so those of us who have health issues have large medical expenses.
Depending on what category you end up with after the yearly visit the company will pitch in a bit towards the deductible. They even have you fill out a lengthy questionnaire each year asking questions like how often you eat out, what you eat, how often you go to the doctor, whether you’ve had a mammogram, colon exam, pap smear etc. It’s very personal and intrusive IMO so we lie. LOL! There isn’t a category for eating at McDonalds but ordering a salad.
This year I refused to go to the cattle call. We always end up in the lowest category anyway so there isn’t anything they can do to penalize us more. They had my cholesterol so off the mark last year that I sent in the test results from my own doctor and complained. I guess the company was able to save some money on premiums this way but it is not very pleasant for the employees.
For years we paid insurance premiums for people who were in and out of alcohol and drug treatment facilities but there isn’t a check box anywhere on the form asking about drug or alcohol abuse, nor was there a checkbox for homosexuals that put themselves at risk for AIDS.
I expect things to get alot worse as they are working to demonize people who are overweight just as they did the smokers. You can see it in the headlines. You can’t pick up a magazine without running into articles about obesity or diet and exercise. My personal favorite was the study about how if you want to stay thin you shouldn’t have fat friends. Having fat friends can make you fat.
If we end up with national health care things will get alot worse. When fat people feel about as low as a child molester their work will be done. Poke them with a stick. They’re done. But there will not be one peep about not insuring homosexuals or making them pay higher premiums for their risky behavior and resulting high health care costs.
It is why I say that we need a Constitutional amendment to keep activist judges from permitting such discrimination. The March of Dimes now "prevents" birth defects by supporting abortion on flawed fetal testing.
Employment, insurance, right to life. All of these are areas of discrimination because of genetics.
This has already happened. Diabetes runs in my family. I have it, my sister has it, my mom has it etc.
My husband has a rare auto-immune disorder. There is nothing he could have done to bring this on. It was just bad luck. So he has to take steroids everyday and chemo drugs. He was on very high doses of steroids for several years. It did terrible things to his body. Weight gain, high cholesterol and blood sugar etc.
Yes, insurance is about risk but how do you spread that risk around fairly? Anyone can get cancer regardless of smoking or not smoking. Alot of lung cancer is not caused by smoking. How do you find out who is an alcoholic or abusing drugs? Rehab is expensive and most addicts aren’t cured in the first try. This is not a behavior that they couldn’t help. It was a choice.
Everyone engages in risky behavior to some extent. Some people do not wear their seatbelts. I guess the insurance company should figure out who is more expensive. The person who becomes paralyzed or brain damaged from a car or motorcycle accident or the diabetic who needs insulin?
There has to be a better way of spreading the risk around that makes more sense.
We have always had terrible health insurance. Years ago when we were young we never had prescription coverage. We had to pay full office visits. We only had coverage for large major medical expenses. Prices were lower back then, we paid for the little stuff and the insurance kicked in on the big stuff like hospital stays and major surgeries.
Then my friends who worked for companies that had unions starting getting their office visits paid for, dental insurance, and $5 co pays on all prescriptions. Things started getting expensive after that.
Let’s add this to the mix and see what we get.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1908231/posts
I’m convinced that the average modern American detests freedom.
“I think everyone should pay for the true cost of their insurance. If you have greater risk factors like smoking or being fat then your insurance should be higher. Its no different than charging more for car insurance when the driver has a bunch of DUI’s or speeding insurance.”
That’s fine. But what about the driver who eats while they drive? What about those who don’t wear their seatbelts? Talk to the passenger? Use their cellphone? Smoke while they are driving? Do you see where I am going here? When they have an accident and on are life support for years are they costing the insurance company more than the diabetic employee’s insulin? It used to be that insurance costs were based on age figuring that as one ages the medical expenses increase. But they haven’t stopped with that. Now it’s smokers who get penalized, overweight people, people with high blood pressure etc. Where does it stop?
What about the employees who engage in drug use, abuse alcohol, practise unsafe sex? Are they more or less expensive than the employees who are overweight or smoke?
The answer is that people who are fat or smoke have been demonized to the point where they won’t fight back. If I go to buy private health insurance no one is going to ask me if I’m gay. Over the years we have paid for quite a few people to go through drug and alchol rehab. Repeatedly.
It may be more fair to base insurance premiums on the actual expenses the person has incurred. Our insurance rates go up after we’ve filed a claim. Those who are actually incurring the most expense would pay the larger premiums. Premiums could go down after a specific time of low $$$ claims and higher after major health expenses.
Yes, those with health issues would be paying more but the costs would be spread equally among those incurring them not just select politically incorrect groups. Some fat people rarely get sick you know. And some smokers never get lung cancer.
thank you
I cast a pretty big shadow too, plus I smoke
Ha ha ha — the joke is on them. Just wait until they find out how much they are going to have to shell out if the employee should happen to QUIT smoking....that’s when health problems begin.... the autoimmune system goes to pot.
Most smokers develop illness with age as all other people do on average. The cost may not show up until they are long off private insurance for a company they work for. This nonsense started with the CDC hiring The Univ of San Fransico of the PDR of Kalifornia to conclude a higher cost. The study was done by the USF medical school headed by a group of the most anti-tobacco people in the country. They are not even real economists but anyway the CDC hired them knowing what the results would be. The independent Congressional Resource Service debunked the study.
Tobacco Control has pushed for insuring smokers at higher rates. The private companies see it as a way to save money knowing the risk factor is crap. Just another way to persecute smokers on top all the taxes thay are stuck with paying for life style choices. Now haow about a $100 dollar excise tax on all sex related products as part of paying for the $120 billion a year it cost for STDs. They could tax condems, sex toys, magizines, videos, hollywood movies showing sex, and of course products such as viagra (especially these). Sounds nuts but this is the same logic used to attack tobacco users.
I know where you are coming from, but man, sometimes, I wish there might be a law like that.............. j/k
If you smoke, you can’t get hired. If you are already with the company (regardless of how long) you must quit smoking or you will be fired.
They however could care less about drinking- go to one of their corporate meeting and their all 3 sheets to the wind by 8:00pm
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