Quote:
|
Originally Posted by pan6467
I heard the newest thing coming down the pike are health insurance companies telling you that you have to belong to a health club and attend several times a month, PLUS, not have alcohol or nicotine in your system plus your cholestrol cannot rise more than a certain number. IF you want to be insured by them....
And it's legal, because they are a private business and can insure who they want.
|
First, this was discussed and discarded by the health insurance industry about 5 years ago because it's unworkable. There's no way that an insurance company can reasonably track this kind of information or make individual insureds do the exercises correctly. The cost to do the tests for alcohol and nicotine and cholestrol were deemed far too expensive to be worth it.
Second, the majority of Americans get their health insurance through group plans, and it's currently illegal in all 50 states for any health insurance company to exclude an individual from group coverage without consent of that individual. Sometimes prior issues may be excluded, but that's more of an example of an employer buying a cheap plan than anything else.
Third, insurance companies are private businesses and should be allowed to refuse any risk that they don't want. They should also be allowed to charge whatever rate they think is necessary. If you don't like it, find another insurance company. There are hundreds out there.
Finally, Pan, all of your other examples involve the health of people other than the individual (with the exception of transfat). That means they're public health hazards, and those have always been legislatable. As for transfat, it's been recently shown to be a very unhealthy substance, and there's a long tradition of legislating away unhealthy things (asbestos and lead, anybody?).