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Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs? [W:87]

Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 42.5%
  • No

    Votes: 42 57.5%

  • Total voters
    73

Ryan5

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Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs?
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What about epileptics? Or mentally retarded? Or diabetics?
 
What about epileptics? Or mentally retarded? Or diabetics?


Some of those aren't preventable.....

How can you even begin to compare those??? Tells us a lot about your intelligence..
 
Should medically judged fat people pay higher medical costs?

In addition to Crue Cab's list of medical conditions, how about professional race car drivers? Professional wrestlers? Boxers? Olympic skiers? Bunge jumpers? Parachutists? Bad drivers? Alcoholics? People who drive motor cycles? People who get X-number of speeding tickets? Traffic accidents?

;)
 
People who are overweight, people who do drugs, people who smoke, people who engage in hazardous activities (motorcycle racing, base jumping), people who refuse to exercise, all should pay more for health care.

People who have medical conditions that they can't change through a change of lifestyle should not.

The rationale is to provide an incentive to change unhealthy lifestyle choices.
 
The rationale is to provide an incentive to change unhealthy lifestyle choices.

No. The rationale is to make people pay more because they are higher risks....so you and I won't have to subsidize them.
 
In addition to Crue Cab's list of medical conditions, how about professional race car drivers? Professional wrestlers? Boxers? Olympic skiers? Bunge jumpers? Parachutists? Bad drivers? Alcoholics? People who drive motor cycles? People who get X-number of speeding tickets? Traffic accidents?

;)

People who don't use seat belts. Gay men who don't use condoms during sex. People who don't floss. People who ride on lawn tractors. Kids who run with scissors. People who have a bar of soap in their bathtubs.

Talk about an endless list of possibilities, right??
 
Some of those aren't preventable.....

How can you even begin to compare those??? Tells us a lot about your intelligence..

Epilepsy can be brought on by drugs, alcohol, inhalants, head injury.
Diabetes can be brought on by poor diet.
Mental retardation, can be caused by head injury.
Many head injuries are preventable or happen from ill advised activities.
Tell me something about YOUR intelligence.
 
Epilepsy can be brought on by drugs, alcohol, inhalants, head injury.
Diabetes can be brought on by poor diet.
Mental retardation, can be caused by head injury.
Many head injuries are preventable or happen from ill advised activities.
Tell me something about YOUR intelligence.



Anyone who thinks even 1-2% of mental retardation in the world is caused by "head injuries" should probably stay off the internet as well as stay off any other public medium for the good of us all.
 
No. The rationale is to make people pay more because they are higher risks....so you and I won't have to subsidize them.

If that's the case, then people born with, or who develop, medical conditions that they can't change should pay more also.
 
yeah, people should lose weight if they want to. i did, and i started exercising, too. however, i'm just not that keen on going down that road any more than we already have. health care is already ridiculously expensive, and let's be honest here : even if they did charge the overweight more, they won't charge the rest of us less. they'll say they will, and maybe even claim that the costs are just going up so fast that us paying what we're paying already is the discount, but in the end, they're just going to pocket the money.

how do i know this? a year or two ago, my employer sent us a letter offering a pretty significant percent discount for being a nonsmoker. well, i am a nonsmoker, so i was totally relieved. i sign the sheet, get my first paycheck of the fiscal year, and guess what? my rate still went up. i'm thinking there's an error or something, so i ask around. turns out that they just jacked the premiums WAY up on the smokers. my discount was that my insurance went up by the same percentage that it would have anyway or maybe a percent or two less. woohoo, discount!

that's what will happen. count me as a no vote.
 
I believe that a discussion on this is an exercise in futility. Companies that sell health insurance have in the past either denied policies to high risk populations, or they have charged higher premiums. Now with the ACA, any attempt at getting people to live responsibly has been shot in the foot. We will ALL shoulder the higher costs. I certainly think, though, that there should be some 'reward' for the person who practices good health maintenance, not smoking, rotting his liver with alcohol or drugs, keeping weight under control, not engaging in risky sports, etc. But I'm sure that will not occur in my lifetime.

And the poster earlier was correct, not everyone can keep their weight at an optimal level because there are so many medications which cause metabolic changes and concurrent weight gain.
 
Why punish people for being overweight?
 
yeah, people should lose weight if they want to. i did, and i started exercising, too. however, i'm just not that keen on going down that road any more than we already have. health care is already ridiculously expensive, and let's be honest here : even if they did charge the overweight more, they won't charge the rest of us less. they'll say they will, and maybe even claim that the costs are just going up so fast that us paying what we're paying already is the discount, but in the end, they're just going to pocket the money.

how do i know this? a year or two ago, my employer sent us a letter offering a pretty significant percent discount for being a nonsmoker. well, i am a nonsmoker, so i was totally relieved. i sign the sheet, get my first paycheck of the fiscal year, and guess what? my rate still went up. i'm thinking there's an error or something, so i ask around. turns out that they just jacked the premiums WAY up on the smokers. my discount was that my insurance went up by the same percentage that it would have anyway or maybe a percent or two less. woohoo, discount!

that's what will happen. count me as a no vote.

Premiums will continue to increase more rapidly than the rate of inflation until and unless we get real reform of the health care system.

Had you not gotten a non smoker discount, your premiums would doubtless have gone up even more than they did.
 
Premiums will continue to increase more rapidly than the rate of inflation until and unless we get real reform of the health care system.

Had you not gotten a non smoker discount, your premiums would doubtless have gone up even more than they did.

as i said in the post. they screwed the poor smokers right to the wall. it was insane. glad i quit, and thank you Allen Carr.
 
as i said in the post. they screwed the poor smokers right to the wall. it was insane. glad i quit, and thank you Allen Carr.

Did they only go after the smokers, or did they go after everyone with a risky lifestyle and/or habit?
 
Some of those aren't preventable.....

How can you even begin to compare those??? Tells us a lot about your intelligence..

First of all...no one is "judged" obese. A medical professional makes a diagnosis that a person is obese. Which medical treatments would you consider are directly related to "obesity"?

Is obesity a contributing factor or a direct cause???

Which illnesses and diseases would you "judge" as needing to be charged a higher rate to fat people?
 
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Some of those aren't preventable.....

How can you even begin to compare those??? Tells us a lot about your intelligence..

So? If you're trying to make everyone pay their proportional costs than that should be that. All this turns into is a form of societal shaming, trying to punish through the pocket book of those you think less of. It's just bullying and essentially no longer insurance.
 
I assume that you mean should our congress critters expand the actualrial risk factors for establishing premium rates of PPACA approved medical care insurance to include obesity. On that basis I answered yes.

I seems ridiculous that only age and tobacco use should be considered for setting premium rates.
 
If that's the case, then people born with, or who develop, medical conditions that they can't change should pay more also.

That seems to be the case for age now - everyone will develop that medical condition. ;)
 
First of all...no one is "judged" obese. A medical professional makes a diagnosis that a person is obese. Which medical treatments would you consider are directly related to "obesity"?

Is obesity a contributing factor or a direct cause???

Which illnesses and diseases would you "judge" as needing to be charged a higher rate to fat people?


The question is if a doctor professionally medically judged you to be obese, should you pay more? I say yes.


Being obese medically speaking means you are officially "not healthy", even if you don't currently have any diseases, your risks are usually triple if not more than a non medically obese person. Hence obese people by their very statistical likelihood of increased risk are in fact raising costs already on everybody without them even being individually raised on said fat person for being obese as of now.


In other words all non medically fat people are already paying more of their money so fat people can get equal treatment even with triple or more the risks they pose. Fat people are currently "robbing" the rest of us because we are paying for their essential "Medical Equality".
 
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