talloulou

oops. I forgot to hit along your main point about the alcoholism, smoking, and drugs.

I would not support any punishment of these behaviors in so far as "health insurance" and what's covered.

It's just a road I don't think is wise to go down. Shall we allow insurance plans to slam diabetics for their lax diet? Forgo paying for heart conditions when the person is a fatty?

Folks do all kinds of stuff to themselves. It would be wrong to allow insurance companies to start deciding which behaviors made one unworthy of being covered.

I don't mind higher costs for smokers, fat people, drunks, sky divers, etc. As long as the higher costs are reasonable, rational, and not hysterical. But I don't believe anyone should be outright denied the right to buy a plan due to smoking, or being fat, or having tons of unprotected sex, having bad genes as proven through dna testing, or playing with sharks,etc. You start allowing insurance companies to get away with all that and before you know it they no longer cover anything that could go wrong if there was any indication that it could've beforehand.

It's easy to pick on drunks and smokers because their vices are so apparent. But what about the woman with cervical cancer? Should we start digging through her past sexual history to see if maybe she was too sexually active and possibly did herself in? How 'bout the woman with breast cancer and no children? Everyone knows having children offers you a protective benefit from breast cancer so should we hold her responsible for ignoring that?

Judging people for whatever they've succumbed to is just a crap road to go down and insurance companies shouldn't be allowed to do it.

1069

Agreed. No point punishing these specific behaviors, some legal, some not (i'm referring to drinking, smoking, drugs).
My father says (and he may be paraphrasing something he's read) that we all choose our own manners of death.
He was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Although he's been thin all his life thanks to a fast metabolism, his diet has always been crappy.
Now he has diabetes, and will spend the rest of his life dealing with all the health problems which attend that diagnosis.
People who engage in extreme sports are risking their lives every day, and risking severe injury and permanent disability as well.
People who smoke risk lung cancer; people who drink risk liver disease. people who use IV drugs risk bloodborne viruses. People who have bad vision risk auto and other industrial acccidents. People who work with chemicals risk cancer and other diseases caused by exposure to environmental toxins. People who live in big cities risk assault; people who commute to work risk traffic accidents, and exposure to pollutants. people who eat a typical 21st century Western diet risk heart disease, hypertension, and a plethora of cancers.
We all choose. We all take considered risks with our lives every day.
It's the only way to live.
And we'll all die someday.
There's no reason to single out some risks and hold those risk-takers more culpable for this fact- the fact of mortality, the fact that to sicken and eventually die is all of our destiny- than all others.
No matter how we behave, how we live our lives, we'll each die exactly once; no more, no less.
If you're willing to assist a nonsmoker through the final passage of his life, which is terminal illness and death, then there's no reason not to give the same courtesy to a smoker.
They're each only going to die once, and either way, it's going to cost some money, regardless of how much they smoked or how much they abstained.

SouthernDemocrat

It seems to me that this would be better described as Walmart externalizing its costs. Right or wrong, companies externalize costs onto taxpayers all the time.

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“A drink a day keeps the shrink away”

- Edward Abbey

American

Only taxpayers?

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"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure." -- Thomas Jefferson יהוה