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When should health insurance cost more for someone?

(Fill in the blank) People should pay more for health insurance if they _________.


  • Total voters
    33
The young think they are immortal, then they get old.
There are almost no serious illnesses in my family. I can eat what I want, and my cholesterol numbers are good. My blood pressure is that of a much younger man.
My mother had diabetes, but not til she was in her 60's. She died in her mid 80's. My father ignored a warning he got with his union job retirement physical, the doc said he had symptoms of colon cancer. Still, he made it to 75. Probably would have lived another 10 years had he gone to the doctor when he was advised to...
Both my parents smoked a lot, drank a little. All of my siblings smoked a lot, and 2 of them drank too much. They are enjoying much better health than they deserve.

I never smoked and rarely drank alcohol. Never did drugs.
Why am I the one to get Parkinson's? Just plain bad luck, I guess.
Aggregate that!!!:2razz:

Yes, that's exactly the point. Is that insurance is supposed to spread risk around for the customers. Because even with statistics and probabilities, no one knows how those probabilities can work out. Smokers may on average die sooner or have more health problems, but that doesn't mean the individual who smokes will necessarily realize those consequences. Same with healthy folk. So when we start charging different amounts to different people; we're doing so off of the statistics and applying it to the individual to minimize loss by the company. You're not so much in insurance-ville there anymore. A true insurance game would say "Ok, X people get cancer a year, there are Y people in the population, so that's x/y probability for any one individual to get it. It costs Z to treat, thus we charge everyone some amount which reflects the cost of the procedure and the probability of any one of our clients getting it.".
 
I would have said None:)
 
If someone's ____ is caused by a personal CHOICE which doesn't have an unavoidable, natural MEDICAL cause - it shouldn't cost MORE per month - but what they end up paying *out of pocket* for subsequent medical issues SHOULD be more.

Smoking (someone is choosing to light up or use)
Overweight (in the absence of a medical-issue the majority of those who are obese are so due to their own personal *choices* in life)
Underweight (just like overweight - in the absence of medical-issues . . . )
Don't exercise/Don't eat right (again - person *choice* is the culprit)

If your health problems are caused by your *choices* that you decide to make - then you should cover more out of pocket expenses . . . but monthly cost? I think that shouldn't waiver.

But having someone in your family with a problem - or being born/developing a problem that's natural and not related to these personal-decision issues - that's a different story. You have *no* control over these things . . . just like gender and race.

How do you define "underweight"? I know many people who would be considered underweight based on BMI, but most of them have naturally very slender frames (nearly all of them are Asian). One of my high school students is very thin, but she eats all the time. She, like others, is just naturally thin. Also, I have seen results of students on underweight people that show that they don't have significantly more health issues than normal weight people unless the weight is a result of anorexia/bulimia, unlike obesity which we know is linked to multiple health issues.
 
How do you define "underweight"? I know many people who would be considered underweight based on BMI, but most of them have naturally very slender frames (nearly all of them are Asian). One of my high school students is very thin, but she eats all the time. She, like others, is just naturally thin. Also, I have seen results of students on underweight people that show that they don't have significantly more health issues than normal weight people unless the weight is a result of anorexia/bulimia, unlike obesity which we know is linked to multiple health issues.

Non-medical conditions of bulimia, anorexia, obsessive exercise, a obvious lack of eating. . . to which someone becomes unhealthily underweight - like me when I was in high-school.

But that's actually far less common - most people don't become underweight for non-medical reasons. . . it's more common, though, to be overweight for non-medical reasons. In fact, unlike obesity, I can't think of anyone I've ever known who was emaciated - by choice - everyone had a diagnosed medical condition that lead to it.
 
Having a poor quality diet growing up leads to an emaciated, elongated figure later on too. It's a constitutional thing.
 
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