I eat right and I exercise seven to eight times per week. I look better – and bench more – at 40 than I did at 20. My cholesterol count is 133. It’s just a matter of lifestyle: a choice.
My risk of serious health problems – and significant cost to my insurer -is as a result much less than that of an overweight, lethargic person (or smoker, heavy drinker, illicit drug user, etc….).
People who are judged to have caused automobile accidents, or have certain types of citations, etc… pay more than the rest of us for car insurance (a lot more) with the net result being that our premiums are lower than they would be if the total cost to insure drivers were spread evenly among us.
Why can’t it work that way with health insurance? Wouldn’t that help reduce premiums for the rest of us, as people who make unhealthy lifestyle choices either (a) had to pay higher premiums or (b) opted out of coverage altogether?
The process would be simple – every 3 years the insured would have to take a physical exam with his PCP (the insurer already pays for an annual physical). A higher premium would apply based upon weight guidelines – say starting at 20 lbs overweight – and other measures that could easily be detected via blood test and/or urinalysis, such as drug use.
Isn’t this how insurance is supposed to work? The concept is that a group of individuals insures against a risk of something bad happening to any of them.
But self-induced health problems aren’t the same insurable risk as are random health problems. It’s really unfair for people who stay fit to have to pay more than the true cost of their risk, in order to allow people who don’t stay fit to skate off paying less than the true cost of their risk, especially when the differences are the result of choices.
And wouldn’t higher premiums for obesity, smoking, etc…. serve as an additional inducement for people with bad habits to change them?
Question was health, not life.
Incog – yes, obesity is caused by overeating. [calories consumed minus calories burned] x 3500 = 1 lb