Obese People to be Charged More for Health Care
 

Well,

next time your significant other gets all up in arms over the cost of cycling, remind of these new federal rules regarding discrimination now against fat people in the workplace.

It is about time we finally got a break for our healthy lifestyles.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/28/smbu...n=money_latest

Money seems to motivate better than anything.

As well they should be...

A mere $5-$10 out of a paycheck will result in a lot of fat people whining, but its not nearly enough motivation to make them thin.

And why charge smokers less than fat people? Smokers are giving everyone around them Cancer, fat people are just killing more cows and helping drive the economy.

And driving up the costs of health insurance for people who arent slobs.

I'm against this, next they will want to change a premium for risky behaviors I enjoy.

Athletic people bring their own burdens to the health care systems as well. We just trade off heart disease for trauma and overuse injuries. That surgery to fix your shattered collarbone isn’t free ya know. :)

I hope they waive this rule for people like me. All four of my grandparents and both my parents have/had high blood pressure. My body fat is 12%, I ride 6 times per week and eat like a monk. Still, my blood pressure is slightly high. I clearly have a genetic issue, not a lifestyle one. Wanna charge tall people too. Maybe people with blue eyes?

I'm against lazy fat people, sure, but screw this sort of behavior.. It seems dangerously big-brother to me...what are they going to fine next? People who mountain bike?

I prefer the positive reinforcement model myself. "What's that? Your resting heart rate is 40? Why yes, you can have the same coverage for half the price!"

It's not that simple. I see a lot of obese kids (with overtly obese parents) in the local diabetic clinics and most of them are of minority backgrounds living in poor communities. They are obese because high caloric foods are relatively cheaper than healthy foods. Secondly, they don't have the necessary facilities that promote recreation. Lastly, being obese is a normative lifestyle in poorer communities. If you raise the cost of health care for obese people, you restrict care to those who actually needed it the most. Now, rich fat people, I could care less.:p And smokers? They should be locked away in St. Helena.

Some already are. This is why I'm firmly in favor of this type of pricing structure. As a general rule, I hate hearing "you're raising my insurance rates" as a justification for why I shouldn't ride a motorcycle, smoke, not wear a seatbelt, or whatever the current argument is. That said, the can of worms is already open, so at least apply it fairly. I haven't had a health insurance claim in about eight years - yet I'm surrounded by overweight, out of shape people constantly going to the doctor to get their insulin, blood pressure medicine, anti-depressants, sleeping pills and everything else under the sun.

Regarding the poor... just because you are "forced" to eat low-quality foods doesn't mean you have to eat so much of it. If they're that poor, they probably don't have health insurance to start with - yet another reason they should want to see the cost of healthcare come down.

I wonder if I can use the "money saved" argument as leverage towards cycling gear...

Research some dollar amounts and we might believe you.

I agree the total amount of money spent would vastly different. However, much of that difference could be due to the fact that there are many more fat people than serious athletes kicking around. Just in my office alone there are about 10 people who are obese and only 2 who take any kind of sport seriously enough to risk hurting themselves. I suspect that on a per person basis the difference may not be as dramatic. If you have some hard numbers please post them.

This idea makes no sense. Healthy people with good diets and exercise get sick every day. ~11% of obese people have a genetic predisposition, and now you are also discriminating against ethnic groups that have higher incidence of obesity and diabetes. People will now lose their jobs because employers can't afford the extra insurance ($10 now, but that will go up, it always does), or cause employers to fire fat people.
This is just another excuse for insurance companies to avoid paying out by marginalizing sick people. Health insurance loves to take money from healthy people and not pay out. This could lead to other assessments of increased risk, like cycling, or other genetic predispositions.

So, overall: bad for some ethnic groups, bad for the overall population, bad for sick people, very, very good for health insurance corporations, who already enjoy $B profits. Sounds like a Republican dream and I'm sure will pass at the federal level. A lot worse policy has been passed in the US.

As for the poor and bad diets: a family of four eating a single meal of crap at McDonalds will spend enough to buy real, nutritious food they can prepare themselves for a week.

Yep, soon it will be GATTACA, just submit your DNA and we will figure out where you fit in society. Heck, why have that baby it will have high blood pressure and heart disease once it hits 40.

While I do agree with everything else you wrote, I don't agree with this. Because, despite us all thinking that the only exercise in the world is cycling, there is also this:
http://www.bubbanfriends.org/picture...sidewalk-1.JPG

This is just for smoking:

http://www.freeclear.com/services/to...?nav_section=1

While studies show that smokers have consistently higher rates of hospitalization, the rate of hospitalization for smokers who quit declines after the year they quit. Thus, the cost-savings that accrue from reduced tobacco use would more than pay for effective tobacco interventions within two years. The NCQA reports that current smokers incur 18% higher health care costs over an 18-month period than those who have never smoked.

Compared to hypertension treatment, pap tests, and breast and colon cancer screenings - which cost between $10,000 and $100,000 per year of life saved - tobacco cessation treatment really is the "health care bargain of the millennium." Treating tobacco dependence is particularly important economically in that it can prevent a variety of costly chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and pulmonary disease.

* In 2002, smokers cost on average $2,295 in excess medical costs per year
* Smokers are admitted to the hospital almost twice as often as non-smokers and average 1.4 additional days of admission
* Pregnant smokers' medical costs are approximately 66% higher than for pregnant non-smokers

How North America is supposed to be advanced, yet we have no laws about smoking or drinking while pregnant is ridiculous.

This is a tricky subject. You could make the argument that healthy people are a burden on the health care system because they live much longer and thus require more medical care in the long run. Fat people die sooner and take themselves out of the health care system.

Actually it makes more sense to just euthanize people at 30.

http://www.boingboing.net/logan.jpg
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...vie_poster.jpg

We can't afford it if everyone quit smoking. Social Security and Medicare would go bankrupt (faster). Smokers pay in their whole lives and never get to cash in.:D

That's a pretty cool movie. I'd make my baby have six arms, and be really, really tiny.

The real problem is that healthcare providers aren't getting reimbursed for their services. After all, isn't it from the care of the unhealthy people where they get their business from? So if hospital workers need more healthcare, shouldn't that generate more income for the hospital?

Interestingly, as each worker is getting nickel and dimed to death, the CEO and top executives are getting richer by the day for comming up with these ingenious money saving ideas. The CEO of the biggest healthcare org. around here pulls in over $2 million a year in salary and compensation. (LINK)

I'd gladly pay $100 just to watch anyone of these CEO's attempt to put in an IV into a 300 lb patient or keep a sick ICU patient alive for 12 hours.

The rich get richer, while the poor keep getting poorer.

Not to be a jerk, but statisticians have been adjusting for test sizes and what not for quite a long time. Any study that did not adjust for these would be immediately dismissed as irrelevant. This (and the fact that I am the most injury prone person I know and my insurance has only been billed for $3500 this year) makes me think that fat people probably cost insurance a lot more than active people. Especially since insurance companies actively promote active lifestyles.

There is no way that they will get to implement this. Some bright attorney or advocate group will file a discrimination judgement and this will be history. We are a "free" society and are behaviors are our own. If you start start legislating lifestyle accountability it opens a whole can of worms.