Last year, I wrote a paper for college where my position was that under the current system, people who knowingly engage in high risk activities should pay more for insurance (which they already do for life insurance and car insurance) and that this should be expanded to cover health insurance.
I ran across an article yesterday that said this was in practice now and that the "high risk activities" has been reduced to pretty much just one thing: obesity. Companies are checking the BMI of their employees and those that are obese pay more for health insurance. Some companies charge one rate but give discounts to people who are more fit. This is the same thing but worded so as to not be charging more for obese people, just less for not-obese people.
This type of discrimination has been authorized by the government as long as the difference in fees isn't more that 20%.
I can see some problems with this.
The first is that just like any other rule that is centered around money, it could have the potential of increasing the gap between the haves and the have nots. It also isn't technically geared toward fitness levels. Sure, obesity comes with a whole host of health problems but if someone smokes or does meth to keep their weight down, are they more healthy?
Side note: some companies charge more for smokers and some companies won't hire smokers.
The problem is, the system sucks.
Health insurance is getting so expensive that companies and individuals are dropping it. Last time I checked, the average cost of a family plan for the employee was $4,000 a year. It's twice that for the company. If you work for a company that has 1,000 employees, they are out $8 million. Is it any wonder that each year, more and more of the cost is passed on to the employees or coverage is just dropped.
In an effort to control costs, companies will be looking at more and more incentives and punishments in the future, I'm sure. The object of course will be to drive out anyone that is using the insurance. Insurance isn't about taking care of people, it's about making money. Insurance companies are and always have been about bringing in lots of money while paying out as little as possible. The bottom line might work as a business model but it doesn't work when you're talking about the health of human beings. You can't use a Darwinian approach to health care and call yourself a civilized nation. You can't cut off health benefits to the people that need them the most and say that you're doing it to save the health care system.
I wrote that paper last year and I'm right. With privatized insurance, the only way to keep insurance running is to charge more based on risk. In a system like ours, it really is to the benefit of employees to do everything they can to be healthy. If you increase the fee for people who rarely use the system, they will drop out of the program and risk paying for any medical problems themselves. If you lose the healthy people, you lose the free money that you were using as profit and to cover unhealthy people.
If you punish the healthy, everyone loses. If you punish the unhealthy, everyone loses.
I'm right in that it's the way to keep the current system running in *some* fashion. The thing is, this system should not be allowed to keep running in *any* fashion.
This is another sign that our health care system is buckling under because of its capitalist foundation. The middle class is losing its ability to afford health care so it won't be very long before only the rich have insurance if something isn't changed.
Charging obese people more isn't going to fix any of the problems surrounding obesity and health care because the current system is Profit Care. This policy is part of the Profit Care system under the guise of motivating obese people to lead a more healthy lifestyle. Insurance companies don't care which way it goes. If obese people do get more healthy, that means more money for the insurance companies because someone stayed in the system and is paying premiums. If obese people don't get more healthy, they will eventually be forced out of the system, that means more money for the insurance companies because they are paying out less. It's a win/win situation for them and a lose/lose situation for the rest of us.
If this becomes an widely used practice, who will be the next target? People over 40? Maybe start with people over 60 and then work down. If they start turning down coverage on diseases that tend to be more prevalent in one race or another, is that going to be okay? Pregnancy is preventable. Maybe that shouldn't be covered.
Once we start, where do we draw the line? We all know who the winner is going to be but who's going to be the next loser?