Health Insurance and Obesity

lauragoat

Anyone else getting large increases from your health insurance in regard to your weight? We are seeing it in double digits at my employer!!! Anyone got any ideas about potential changes? Assistance? Support? Legislation? I am Missouri-based...

FairyMiss

i tried to get health insurance on my own several years ago because my employer didnt offer it (very small busness) called several companies and was flat out turned down my most because i did not meet there height/weight ratio

jamielise2

I'm sorry, that sucks. I guess it would depend if your insurance provides treatments for obesity. Most of them don't, which is dumb. I talked to a dietitian last week, and she said the reason most people don't cover weight loss treatments is because people change insurances so often these days that the companies don't want to pay for preventive care than another company will benefit from. REALLY stupid. But no, most insurers don't charge you extra if you're overweight, because the risk averages out over the entire population.

lauragoat

That's just lovely. I guess they think if you are overweight, you'll rich enough to self-insure. Is it any better yet? Larger company will get you guaranteed acceptance upon hire (after probation period, of course)...

Heatherbelle_87

I dont know about your area specifically but unfortunantly due to the higher risk of health problems with obesity insurance companies can legally raise the rates, deny certain insurances/policies, or require you to participate in a "health monitoring program"

Also when renewing contracts the companies look at your overall company health expenses for the past 1-5 years, so if alot of coworkers (others in the company) have chronic health problems that will cause dramatic rate increases.

Another portion of the health insurance cost increases over the next 5 years is the Healthcare act Obama put in place. With insurances now being REQUIRED to cover preventitive care it WILL cause premium costs to go up since many plans didnt cover preventitive care in the past and the "grand fathered" plans will expire byu the end of that 5 year term

crisanderson27

Ok...I'm not sure if my stance on this is going to be a popular one....but, in theory I can agree with it costing more to insure someone if they have a higher risk of health issues, obesity, smoking, history of heart issues, etc. If I had to cover someone's health care costs, I'd certainly pick the skinny non-smoker with no known history of health issues...wouldn't you??

What I CAN'T get on board with no matter how hard I try...is how they judge 'obesity'.

Yep, 5'7" tall, 186lbs...and THIS is a picture of someone who is borderline obese:



Using a height/weight chart to determine obesity is criminal, at the least..