I do think there are huge (potential) benefits for having a cost associated to people who are living lives which are generally unhealthy; and I think charging higher insurance priemums based on a person's health is much more fair than charging tax on unhealthy foods because healthy people often will compensate for unhealthy eating and be in an (overall) fairly positive position.
Another thought I have been having lately is an organization/company that should exist which could (dramatically) impact the price of health insurance ...
What I was thinking of is a computerized benefits exchange where a company or individual (or both) would put in the money they were planning on devoting to employment benefits and the employee would be given the choice on how to allocate that money. If a person was making choices about how much money they wanted to devote to Health Insurance (protection against high cost illnesses), Health Benefits (Check-ups and other minor procedures), Dental Benefits, a Drug Plan, Vision Care, Preventitive care (Gym Membership), Alternative Medicine (Chiropractor) and Healthcare savings accounts (or whatever companies dream up) the costs for most people should come down because they could make rational choices and companies could target their needs more specifically.
I could be wrong but I suspect you would see several benefits from this:
- Households with two working adults would be in the position to combine their health benefits in a way that ensured they had a better (overall) package
- Low income and part time employees would be far more likely to get benefits if it meant that the company provided $0.50 to $2.00 per hour towards benefits than if it meant that employers have to pay $10,000 for a benefit plan.
- People with decent wages and inadequate benefits could top-up their plan to get the kinds of benefits they wanted.
- Since people were designing their benefits around their needs the total cost of their plan would better reflect their total cost on the entire system.
