Should health-care coverage be behavior based much like auto insurance is?
Should health care coverage cover every little check up, shot, pill, etc – after all auto insurance certainly does not cover every little maintenance item – shouldn’t it be up to the consumer (ie patient) to cover the maintenance of their finely tuned engine?
Maybe you folks are different than I am – but my mother always told me to take very good care of myself: to eat healthy, exercise, proper rest, etc
Obviously the insurance would kick in when you come down with a non-preventable illness such as cancer, nervous system disorders, accidents, etc
But why should we pay out the arse for if you eat 3 big macs a day and ride a scooter while shopping at the grocery store – get off your but.
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10 Responses to “Should health-care coverage be behavior based much like auto insurance is?”
Richmond/Hanover, VA
No freakin way.
This would mean that you would essentially be punished for getting sick, injured, etc and no one would end up going to the doctor. This would result in increased diseases and would be catastrophic.
Wouldn’t work with Group Coverage but non-group coverage currently does this.
YES we are Not Cars or trucks . You act like the Insurance Industry pays for this out of their own pocket . But Insurance Corporations actually pay little out compared to what they take in . Especially when it come to Medical Health INS.
EXACTLY. You nailed it.
Car insurance DOES NOT cover general maintenance like health insurance does. This is exactly why it’s insane to offer “free” health insurance – could you imagine offering maintenance coverage for auto insurance? We’d be paying for oil changes every 1000 miles!!!!
Keep it in the private sector. Make it portable so individuals can buy it themselves – disconnect it from employment. Allow folks to buy “a la carte” coverage, often at high deductibles.
THEN you’ll have affordability!!!!!
So if i’m born with asthma and eye problems and bad teeth and you are born perfectly healthy I should have to pay more?
That is what my brother wants, he is a vegetarian unless he knows where it came from and eats mostly organic. He told me he does not want to pay for fat people. I am nicer, I don`t blame the fat people, I blame the food companies for putting profit before people.
Well Obama’s health care plan is supposed to give different premiums according to how much you make. So not for everyone; just for the welfare bums. For a person that works hard, they will get not as much coverage but will pay the same amount of taxes.
——I have read all 1018 pages of Obama’s health care bill as it stands now.
If people who aren’t paying into the system are wanting free healthcare at the expense of those who do pay into it, then they should be banned from smoking, drinking, and eating junk food so long as they are reliant on others.
I pretty much agree with you. Health insurance should pay for the big stuff, but last I heard, auto insurance could still cancel your policy for DUI, etc., or at least raise your premiums sky-high. The problem with your analogy is that most drivers are reasonably good drivers, and only one in a few hundred thousand is going to cause and accident every day. With bad health habits, everyone is an offender, because we live in a culture that rewards bad health habits, or at least doesn’t punish them. It also doesn’t do anything to curtail activities that have been causing health problems for decades. It only punishes and vilifies the victims of such activities. Some people are their own victims, but most Americans are the victims of mountains of misinformation about diseases, conditions and causative effect. You should read scientific and medical journals; it would astound you how NONE of that information makes its way into the public sphere where we all might have access to it at the grocery store checkout stand.
Let’s finally have insurance coverage of PREVENTIVE services: education, lifestyle change, nutrition, etc. Academic medical centers now have Integrative Medicine Centers. Make it reimbursible. Medicare is finally beginning to see the light and moved to cover lifestyle approaches to cardiac disease. (See the Dr. Dean Ornish Program). Let’s keep the ball rolling and do the same for other illnesses as well.
Reward those with positive health behaviors and reward those who make positive health changes while covered. Don’t reward those who don’t try to take care of themselves.
Bring health to mainstream television. Demonstrate how to make good choices. Make it exciting, make it part of REAL life not a “health” program.