Charging the Unhealthy More For Insurance

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 7, 2007 @09:15AM from the no-carrots-for-you-here's-a-stick dept.

Joe The Dragon sends us a BusinessWeek story, run on Yahoo, about Clarian Health and the new thing they are trying with health insurance coverage for their employees. They are charging unhealthy people more. The article goes into some depth about whether this is a good idea and whether the practice might spread. "In late June, the Indianapolis-based hospital system announced that starting in 2009, it will fine employees $10 per paycheck if their body mass index (BMI, a ratio of height to weight that measures body fat) is over 30. If their cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose levels are too high, they'll be charged $5 for each standard they don't meet. Ditto if they smoke: Starting next year, they'll be charged another $5 in each check."

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This is crap by palladiate · 2007-08-07 09:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

They can go screw.

I have a BMI over 30. I used to play baseball. Heartrate? 63. BP? 122/63. Glucose, white cell count, red cell count? Normal. My doctors say I'm perfectly healthy, except for the rare form of cancer.

I truly fear the future where we treat insurance as a personal thing. We invented insurance as a way to spread risk. If we charge you directly for your risk, we are creating no economic benefit. It just means that in the future, I'll have to bear the entire cost of my cancer treatments.

And the healthy? You'll get the privilege to pay a private company to absorb zero risk.