Current Events — HabitableZone

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The alternative...
Tom Brosz — (archived)

<...we could just let the free market take its course and allow health insurers to refuse coverage to the obese and put murderously high premiums on their policies for the fat. The obese would die and the fat would have to choose: food or health insurance. They'd lose weight or go the way of their obese neighbors.

I assume you're being sarcastic, but in a real free market insurance companies are a major driver for good and prudent behavior. People who drive carefully get better rates than people who don't. People who have smoke alarms get better rates than people who don't. Smokers pay more for life insurance. And yes, all else being equal, maybe people who are demonstrably obese would get higher health insurance rates.

Remember, in a free market, the healthier you are, the more money a health insurance company makes.

The government has spent the last forty years fouling up the free market in health provision and insurance like a Rottweiler dragging its butt across a white carpet, so I don't know how much of this still works any more. People figure that if the insurance company won't carry their load, either the government will, or better yet, the government can hold a pistol to the head of the insurance companies and MAKE them cover everyone. This last is best for the government of course, since it costs no taxpayer money and drives the insurance companies into bankruptcy. Then the government can instigate socialized medicine as the only alternative. Which of course was the whole idea in the first place.

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