Posted by
Dave Smith on Wednesday, October 07, 2009 8:29:09 PM
The business of insurance is built around statistics and quantification
of risk: if you want to ride your motorcycle without a helmet, or if
you have speeding tickets or a DWI conviction, you're going to pay more
for motorcycle or car insurance. Insurance providers have things
broken down by age, gender, and a myriad of other parameters to
determine how much of a risk you are, so they can charge you
accordingly.
Apparently, according to the
Charlotte Observer,
such activity, when applied to health insurance and high-risk behaviors
like smoking and high-risk conditions like obesity, serve to "penalize"
those customers caught up in the high risk condition:
North Carolina is poised to become only the second state to
penalize state employees by placing them in a more expensive health
insurance plan if they're obese.
Smokers will feel the drag
of higher costs, too, as North Carolina and South Carolina state
employees who use tobacco are slated to pay more for health insurance
next year. ...
...The idea of penalizing unhealthy lifestyles and rewarding healthy
conduct is hardly new among insurance plans. Public health insurance
plans in other states already penalize smokers or reward nonsmokers in
insurance costs. South Carolina's state employees health plan is
scheduled to add a $25-per-month surcharge on smokers in January.
Elsewhere in the southeast, Kentucky and Georgia impose surcharges, and
Alabama gives nonsmokers a discount.
Of
course, there are some that find this "hostile": "The State Employees
Association of North Carolina opposes the tobacco and obesity
differentials as invasive steps", with one quoted state employee
claiming that "it's an invasion of privacy. This is America, the land
of the free." Of course, the quoted employee seems to ignore a couple
of important items. First of all, under the proposal, no one would
lose the right to smoke, or to eat whatever they want, or not to exercise, etc. Secondly, no one is forced
to purchase health insurance (well, at least not yet in North
Carolina); an employee not wanting to submit to providing information
about smoking habits or height and weight can simply refuse to
participate in the health plan. Third, the plan is being subsidized by
the state — to the tune of over $750 million over three years; this
means, of course, that the taxpayers of North Carolina are required to
foot the bill — the behavior isn't "free" for those paying taxes.
I'm
certainly not in favor of Big Government meddling in the private lives
of citizens; if you want to smoke or in general live unhealthfully,
that's not my business. However, neither is it my business to be
required to subsidize such behavior. Let those who are of higher risk
pay accordingly. That's not punishment, that's just common sense.