Do you think obese/overweight people should pay more for health insurance?

Paying more because of increased health risks is a fact of life I reckon. Certainly doesn't act as a deterrent for me, unfortunately. If I lose weight and keep it off for a year I can get the levy removed. What happens if is slim when they get the insurance and then gets fat? All those years of extra levies the insurance company has missed out on, and then probably refuses to pay out anyway.

The point isn't necessarily to encourage overweight people to lose weight, but to get them to shoulder most of their health costs for a result that (in most cases), is due to their own actions. Especially since weight related issues ranks high on health care costs.

So I guess my short answer is "no".

A person would see the insurance bill, get on mfp and lose 20 lb, then sue the provider for discrimination.
Any legal remedy protecting the provider would be overturned.

Overweight and obesity is so quickly and easily changed, in either direction, as to make the implementation of such a pricing mechanism fraught with complexity.

We already have life insurance that charges more for obesity and high blood pressure. The price of it never convinced me to lose weight.

In principal I agree, that if your body makeup increases your chances of hypertension, heart disease and diabetes, you should be subject to higher premiums. But shouldn't the premiums really only go up once these issues actually present themselves? Once they do, most people will unfortunately opt for medication, rather than making a lifestyle change that could mitigate the issue. How do you 'reward' the minority that actually does the work to change eating and activity habits?
Also for that matter - how do you measure obesity? If you use BMI, then healthy, athletic/muscular build folks may end up paying more, even though they are far healthier than someone that may be harmfully underweight.

I say that people who use health care should have to pay more for insurance. Put a 50% increase on your premium for each doctor visit. Another 50% increase for every prescription. 50% if you need lab tests or any scans. It's not fair healthy people pay for sick people.

By this logic, anyone who does things that are detrimental to their health should be charged extra for health insurance... people who don't get enough exercise, people who eat unhealthy, people who have unsafe sex or many sex partners, people who work in coal mines or with pesticides. You can't pick and choose

No I don't -
Then smokers should pay more
Oh and people that go skiing (break way more limbs) and those that drive cars (major reason of injury)
The ones that work in high risk industry (oil rigs etc) Chemical industry (cancer risks)
Oh and those that have children when they know heditary diseases run into one of the family? For instance in my family asthma runs in the family (I have it too) should I pay more? Or in my husbands family heditary heart conditions and heditary diabetes 2 (yes there is a genetic link) Should they pay more?
Or the people in Volendam where there is a specific disease local and genetic Yet they insist on procreating Should they pay more?
Or the people that have the audacity to get really old and cannot move anymore? My grandmother had a fall at 72, broke her back, went blind and deaf. Needed increasing care as a result. Should she pay more as she fell over a chair she'd left a little carelessly in the wrong spot? After all she lived until 86.

Where do you stop? So I say no. There are things we cannot control, there are things we can but still do and we all do something that the other considers to be stupid and possibly endangering our own health. We share the burden

I am in favour of programs that help people to get things back under control and to give support where needed/wanted. I am in favour of using tax where food is generally considered to be not that healthy (soda/pop/carbonated sugar waters). But health insurance, no that is not a good incentive

smoking is a "touchable" source, so what are you going to base obese on? Weight? BMI? Fat percentage, these are all figures that are either very shadowy/incorrect, or can fluctuate greatly

This discussion makes me realise how lucky I am living in Europe.
Loading is not allowed here. If you need medical help its their for you regardless of your situation.

Should you charge more for someone whose parents had cancer? What if they grew up in foster care (childhood neglect and abuse are associated with a whole host of health issues later in life)? Should their genes be tested and then we charge more for anyone predisposed to any disease?

Theo166 wrote: »

Cost sharing is appropriate but there should also be consequences for things under your control. If your behavior affects your car insurance, why not health insurance.

Problem is that health insurance is nothing like car insurance because it is not freely underwritten because the truth is it's not really insurance. It covers fixed costs and, of course to the extent it covers pre-existing conditions (and can't charge more for them) that's another huge way it's not insurance.

I don't care about this, but I think we need to be honest that it's not really an insurance model and people don't really want the insurance model. (The number of people who would not be able to get insurance or would pay way, way, way more for it if it were actually based on individual underwriting is huge, and this would also probably lead to people not getting medical care -- just like minor accidents often are not reported or other possible claims on insurance forgone in other areas -- to avoid losing/cost increases with insurance. Most don't realize this, because most (or enough, anyway) are protected from this by group employer insurance. They don't connect their own actions to costs.)

Anyway, I'm not opposed to having some kind of surcharge for obesity, but it would be a pain and how does one do it, rely on self reporting? (I'm not sure how the smoking thing works.) Seems to me that it's essentially the same as those wellness programs in reverse (paying less for being normal weight=paying more for being overweight if the total is the same, obviously). But what we realistically cannot and will not have is actual underwriting based on risks.

(I think the political pressure is such that paying more for health insurance also will not happen, and it does open the door to other intrusions -- like in diet? -- that I think most would oppose.)

I don't put much faith in 'wellness programs' since people mostly know they have problems with their lifestyle. We probably need more PSA type marketing on the benefits of healthy living. We have a marketing problem.

I think wellness programs are about exercising, reducing cholesterol, reducing weight. I don't think they work that well, but I do think having specific goals and action steps that have specific shorter term rewards has more potential for changing behavior than reliance on general "I know should lose weight and exercise more and eat better, but it's all overwhelming and I don't really know what to do and will do something someday." There is some evidence that people who change their behaviors often do it as a result of being told that it will have specific health consequences -- this helps with the long-term/short-term reward issue by making it more concrete and short-term. I think such a thing might have been helpful for me (maybe, maybe not), as I knew I should lose weight but put it off in part because I had no feeling of urgency -- my health and tests were always good and I knew it was a risk but kept thinking I could fix it later. (Ultimately it wasn't health but just being disgusted with myself and wanting to be more active and fit and look better that motivated me. I was sick of feeling depressed and miserable every time I bought clothes or someone pulled out a camera.)