Why not? Insurance prices are a measure of risk, and a smoker is more of a health risk than a non-smoker. After all, I pay a lot higher premium for the life insurance my company offers than someone 20 years younger.
Blue Cross Blue Shield charges more for smokers in my zip code. Full coverage for a smoker is about $60 more a month.
There is a glaring lack of statistical data on smokers and general health, mortality and medical costs per identified individuals.
There is a glut on projected costs based on not much more than the incidences of diagnosed respiratory conditions of long-term smokers and the higher rate of primary lung cancers.
Physician surveys back in the 50s and since have consistently shown that 80% or so of lung cancers occurred among lifelong smokers, usually of post-middle age while younger victims of the same disease split about evenly.
It has yet to be established or required that death certificates specify smoking as a proximate cause of death.
This state of affairs allows for a great many exaggerations to be made from “common sense” which, as we all know is neither common nor does it always make sense.
Some people just spend an inordinate amount of time going to and fro among the various medical service options made available to them and in the process, muddy up the pond.
There are two responses to a diagnosis of a terminal condition - attack or resign. Those who attack account for well over 75% of the total lifetime costs of their care while those who just sit back and let nature take its course make little extra demands on the system at all.
It is perfectly okay to use negative incentives as a behavioral modification tool but it is disengenous to say that this is a benefit to the general well being of all concerned.
The simple fact is that at this point in societal progress toward the attainment of such a benefit, that smoking, being the least popular of all bad habits in recent history among the architects of a “Better World,” represents the easiest to gather support and avoid resistance.
Many doctors when seeing a smoking patient for the first time will set about on a course that leads down two pathways, one to dissuade the smoker and encourage cessation and the other, more profitable road that runs the gantlet of every stick, probe, scan and exploration at their disposal.
The real problem is that medical providers see an insurance card as a blank check.