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Pay more for health insurance if your blood pressure's high
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by Actual News Geezer | July 25, 2007 at 09:42 am
1393 views | 10 Recommendations | 5 comments
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Imagine a health insurance plan that forces you to have monthly blood pressure tests - and every time your BP goes up, so do your premiums.
This is not just a fantasy. Many insurers are beginning to offer plans that will penalize you on an ongoing basis for changes in your vital stats: weight, blood pressure, maybe even body fat index, who knows - perhaps even your anxiety levels.
Imagine what a trip to the doctor's would be like if you're worried that whatever she discovers means your premiums will go up!
Overweight smokers with high cholesterol and blood pressure could pay $2,000 more a year in health insurance deductibles than their fitter co-workers under a new type of insurance being offered by the nation's largest insurer.While many employers have programs that reward workers with cash or lower health care costs simply for joining wellness programs or starting treatment, the new policies from UnitedHealthcare go a step further: It's not enough to just try to live a healthier life.
"We're going to reward individuals for health results, not just actions," says Tom Beauregard, a senior vice president at UnitedHealthcare, which began offering the new policies to midsize employers in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado this month and may launch them nationwide next year.
The policies are seen as the latest move in a growing effort by employers to have workers pay more toward health care costs and take more responsibility for their own health.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 10:27 on July 25th, 2007
makes sense to me. The more unhealthy people should pay more. This is also an incentive to be healthy.
at 13:30 on July 25th, 2007
Actual News Guy thanks for posting this. I waver on issues like this, a whole lot. Because anywhere that you pose absolute solutions like this there are bound to be exceptions.
For example, what about those people are genetically predisposed to high blood pressure? Should I be punished for my genes? Poor people tend to have poorer health because of accessibility to good food and medical care--should people be penalized for their economic situation?
What about chronic illnesses that cause other symptoms? Who's responsible for my lung cancer if I didn't smoke? Who's fault is it that I'm fat if my mom and dad are fat and have always been fat?
These are huge questions. Though I encourage measures intended to make people pursue better personal health I can't help but think:
Are insurance companies proposing genetic profiling?
It's Gattaca-esque.
at 12:46 on July 26th, 2007
Insurance is just that..insurance. And if you are unfortunate to have negative health predispositions then the insurance company has an obligatin to charge you more as your risk of getting sick is higher. Insurance is not a right nor a requirement. It is a personal choice of responsibility.
at 13:33 on July 26th, 2007
I disagree. Firstly, because I think health insurance should be a universal right, no matter who you are.
Should you then have to pay more for it, it should be because of your choices and not your genetic makeup.
This is similarly found in car insurance (at least in BC, where I live): younger people tend to have to pay more for car insurance, but it's not because they're young--it's because they're less experienced behind the wheel.
If unhealthy people are charged more for health insurance, it should be because they are doing it to themselves by making poor choices, not because they were born with a certain set of predispositions.
Again, this is something I see as genetic profiling, which I believe is wrong. Therefore, I think we should all be given the same standard of basic universal health insurance (as we have to an extent in Canada).
at 13:55 on July 26th, 2007
If insurance were a right and not a personal choice or privilege, then you would be correct. However, since it is administered by private companies, whose goal is to remain profitable while providing a service to its customers, they have a responsibility to not only determine the correct premiums but to deny insurance coverage. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />If a government determines that it will take on the responsibility of health care, then it taxes at higher rates. Similarly, premiums will vary based on the pool of insurance customers. If the pool is made up of genetically 'deficient' people, they will expect the cost to keep these people healthy to be higher. This should equal higher rates.
Yes it sucks to have to pay more just because you have some predisposition to a disease, but why should a healthy 20 year old have to pay high premiums so that this predisposed person gets a cheaper rate? They should not. In the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />USA, the government steps in and bridges this gap through Medicaid so that both people are covered.