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Tomas Robinson

Mrs. McVicker

Health and PE

1 June 2017

Should Insurance Charge Higher Premiums for The Unhealthy?

When we buy insurance it is to protect family and friends in the event we die. However if

the chance that you were to die increased by a significant margin it would be a greater risk for

companies to insure these people. That is the problem today since many people are overweight or

have an unhealthy lifestyle that may lead to early death or health problems in the future. Would

you like to pay for something that you knew was going to break? Probably not since it would be

too much work in the long run and you would just rather not pay for it at all.

I believe that insurance should charge higher premiums for unhealthy lifestyle because of

the incentive it would give to live a less risky life. It would also cause the insurance companies

to make more money and expand their healthcare and make it more available to everyone in the

long run. Also the life expectancy of people as a whole would get better since there would be a

reason to become fit. Then the action of exercising and leading a healthy lifestyle also makes

people more productive at work benefiting everyone in the end. So premiums overall should be

raised for unhealthy lifestyles.

The first is based on the principle of beneficence: Encouraging healthy behaviors

reduces suffering, prevents social exclusion, promotes autonomy, and reduces the threat to social

solidarity (in light of potential concerns about the "free-rider" problem, where someone is seen to

benefit from a system without contributing a fair share). (Buchanan). This means that it will

help these people who are considered overweight in the workforce to be more positively judged
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than beforehand. Also since many smokers and overweight people are sedentary this puts

additional danger to their well being. Dubois devotes an entire section to challenging the claim

of actuarial fairness, i.e., because it costs more to treat people who smoke, are overweight, are

sedentary, and drink too much, it seems only fair that they should pay more for their coverage.

(Buchanan). Because of the negative thoughts surrounding smokers usually means that they are

also inactive and do not do as much as others. If they were to pay more than healthy workers this

would lead to a positive change in lifestyle.

But as companies struggle to curb rising health-care costs, they are increasingly pointing

a finger at workers ballooning bellies. Obesity-related health problems account for a big chunk

of medical claims, insurance experts say, leading some executives to believe the best way to trim

their budgets is to get workers to trim their own fat first. (Wieczner). As healthcare becomes

more expensive these companies need to find a way to reduce medical costs somehow and that

would be to hire healthy workers. Since the workers would be in better shape they would not

need as many medical claims compared to those who are obese. This would make this factor

beneficial to the company as well as for the individual. Making smokers pay extra is more

widely accepted than penalizing workers for relative fatness, says Wood and perhaps with

good reason (Wieczner). Since smokers premiums have always been higher it would only make

sense to raise that on the obese as well since it would help them get to where they need to be.

We all know that smoking has a major effect on health insurance and on the premiums
that you will pay for it. The issue is a lot more involved than is commonly assumed, and more
important, its likely to only get worse in the future. As the weight of evidence on the effects of
smoking on health continues to mount, premiums for smokers will get even higher.
(Mercadante). Obviously smoking carries risks of developing illnesses and cancers and has been
widely accepted to have high premiums. Theres also evidence that smoking can contribute to
osteoporosis and pregnancy complications in women. When you consider the magnitude of these
illnesses and the higher mortality rates they carry its easy to see why insurance companies
charge smokers higher premiums. (Mercadante). The reasons to raise premiums and rates for
health insurance seem more clear when the dangers and effects of smoking are noticed.
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In conclusion I believe that people who live unhealthy lifestyles should pay higher
premiums. First it will help to create more social acceptance if the obese are to lose weight.
Second it would benefit the workplace as well as the individual workers since the companies
would not have to pay for many medical claims and the workers would not become ill. Lastly
smoking has already been considered an unhealthy activity and is accepted when raising the
premiums for smokers. So for greater effectiveness of the healthcare industry the obese should
also pay the same rate. And because of these reasons I support the raising of premiums for those
who live an unhealthy lifestyle.
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Works Cited
Buchanan, David R. "Should People With Unhealthy Lifestyles Pay Higher Health Insurance

Premiums?" Medscape. WebMD LLC, n.d. Web. 07 June 2017..

Wieczner, Jen. "Selling Health Insurance by the Pound." MarketWatch. Marketwatch Inc, 30 Jan.

2013. Web. 07 June 2017.

Mercadante, Kevin. "How Smoking Affects Your Health Insurance Premiums." RSS. N.p., n.d.

Web. 07 June 2017.