should smokers and drinkers pay more for health care?

I'm not sure if this will pertain to any countries other than Canada since our health care systems obviously differ, but I thought it was an interesting topic.

flipping through the channels earlier today, there was a debate on one of our news stations asking people what they thought about this subject. some were saying yes, because they felt they were a drain on the health care system causing everyone to pay higher taxes for treatments to their "preventable" illnesses, while some of the experts were saying that it's not 100% possible to link lung cancer and other ailments generally related to someone who smokes or drinks. some people can smoke their whole lives and not get lung cancer, while others can develop it from something like pollution without ever smoking.

I don't know how they would even go about adjusting how much smokers/drinkers pay without turning our system into the sort of healthcare where everyone just pays for what they need.

so what are your thoughts?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by BlueMikey

We need to be careful though with healthcare, especially like in a state-run system in Canada or through the US's Medicare. If insurance can discriminate (not a negative connotation of that word here) against someone who smokes because they are more likely to get lung cancer, why couldn't they also require a blood test when you sign up and make you pay more if you have a recessive gene that makes you more likely to, say, die of a stroke, regardless of your lifestyle?

You could argue that thems the breaks and that's just what happens in a free market, but it's just not humane. And it's not a far leap.

this is exactly why I'm really iffy about saying people who abuse substances should pay more for healthcare. once that line is crossed, other people will start to jump on this idea and it could very well escalate to the point where our healthcare system has been completely compromised from what it is today.

now I'll admit, I'm not 100% sure exactly how the healthcare system works in Canada, but I was always under the impression we paid a certain tax for it and our specific needs are paid for through job benefits. perhaps someone who knows more about it could explain it better, since I see the majority of people who have posted in this thread so far are from the states and you might be thinking about the topic more along the lines of how your own system works.

Quote:

In a more parallel example, why stop at smoking or drinking? I read a report once (hell, there is a report for everything) that said if you live near high voltage power lines then your risk of cancer goes up. Should people who live near power poles pay more? There is a town in Arizona that has an abnormally high frequency of childhood leukemia...so if parents have a child, should their employer group health plan rates go up compared to someone in another town? Do cell phone users pay more since there are some reports (and many reports that refute this) that say cell phones cause brain tumors? These are all choices people can make, where they live, what products they use, which, depending on who you ask, can impact health. Not as much as smoking, but they can.

It's a fine line to straddle.

this is sort of what one of the "expert" guys were talking about. in studies, they haven't actually been able to verify that smoking WILL cause lung cancer, or that being an alcoholic WILL cause liver disease, only that it can, because not everyone who smokes or drinks excessively ends up with these types of complications. the increased chance is always there that you might, but then again there's always the chance that you'll get hit by a vehicle when you cross the road as a pedestrian. there's so many ways to spin the argument.

there's also a study he mentioned on drinking and driving related car accidents, which is probably what the biggest problem with drinking is, and that apparently found that it was only a about 50/50 chance of the accident being caused by an alcoholic. you may rarely ever drink, but if you have a few glasses of wine or something and then drive your friend to the airport, you're just as likely to cause an accident as anyone else who has been drinking, regardless of how often you drink. your car insurance should certainly go up because of it, but your healthcare? I dunno.

There's nowhere I can't reach.