should smokers and drinkers pay more for health care?

I know that you pay more for life insurance for smoking, I don't see why not for medical care, either. I smoke, so this would directly effect me, all the more reason why I'm trying to quit, I guess.

Drinking, though? That's really kind of hard, where do you draw the line, especially when you consider that somepeople can imbibe large quantities regularly without serious health problems like stomach cancer and liver failure. Besides, pretty much everyone I know has gone through phases with drinking, not like alcoholism, but when you're young the compulsion is to party. Then, you get older and it levels off. Certain types of alcohol, in moderation (red wines for example), can actually provide certain benefits to your health. The only case I could make for alcohol effecting premiums would be there's some documented case of abuse, i.e. DUI/alcohol related incident report(s).

Then again, why don't we just raise premiums for people who are not within healthy BMI standards. Being overweight has a lot of associated health issues. More than smoking, I'd wager, actually.

Or, here's another one, what about people with family histories of disorders like thyroid problems or other chronic health problems?

Pretty soon, everyone is paying ridiculous amounts of money for health coverage, as if it wasn't bad enough that already like 15% (or better, depending on which survey you look at) of people living in the U.S. can't afford/don't have medical insurance.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think there should be more emphasis on preventive medicine, anyway.

Encouraging people to quit smoking and moderate their drinking, bettering their eating habits and more regular visits to the physicians office for check-ups. Then again, if you engage in any sort of rigorous physical activity like surfing, skateboarding and the like; you're putting your body at risk.

Most people only go to the doctor when there's something they feel is wrong. This isn't that healthy, because then the doctor can't take steps to alert someone if something could potentially be harmful.

I think modern healthcare is sort of fucked up, anyway. Prevention is the key, health is a process not a condition.

There's nowhere I can't reach.