Higher Rates for Smokers

In many communities around the country today, surveys are taken basically asking the same question over and over. It is not so much the questions being asked on the surveys that matter as how these questions are asked. One very sensitive subject that comes with regard to health insurance is the issue of smoking cigarettes.

Now, to advocate that smoking cigarettes is a good habit would be wrong, but why does this issue keep arising time after time? Have you ever wondered how the questions to health insurance surveys are carefully constructed to lead the individual into the conclusion that is desired?

Why does anyone even care who smokes and who does not? How many other undesirable health care habits are there that may cause harm to surrounding individuals in one form or another? Are we as a society going to begin a movement to ban airplanes because breathing in jet fuel is hazardous to the health of the general flying public?

Are we going to ban mining because to breathe in the undesirable vapors cause a multitude of lung diseases over a period of time? Why are some undesirable activities accepted by society as a whole, while other undesirable activities are unacceptable?

Why must an individual who smokes cigarettes be singled out automatically paying higher rates? If you pay more for affordable health insurance, does that protect you and those who surround you?

Whether an individual smokes cigarettes seems to be the number one question in many aspects of society today. Interestingly enough though, there is hardly a mention regarding health care for those who are addicted to drugs, or smoke marijuana are exonerated from all and any ridicule. Why is this?

Society today punishes smokers on the assumption they are submitting more health insurance claims than a non-smoker is, but this is not necessarily true. Individuals with chronic illnesses and the elderly place more claims on average, but this is really beside the point.

Young individuals who are no longer permitted to remain on their parent’s health insurance policy are also paying higher insurance rates just because they are young. Why are our children paying higher medical health insurance rates when they should be paying the lowest insurance rates?

The problem is not if you smoke or you do not, nor does it really matter if you are healthy or chronically ill. The bottom line always comes down to simple economics.