Should they pay more or be refused cover completely?

For example imagine if someone is really fat, like whale fat who sits in front of the computer all day from 5am to midnight & never goes outside & doesn't have much of a life. They scarf food all day & choke their arteries etc, does their inactivity exclude them from health insurance considering how much of a drain on the health system they are.

I say yes & they're a pustule on society.

Add smokers to that list.

Bit of a gross-misrepresentation of fat people there, but I'll bite.

Yes, absolutely yes. If you knowingly and willingly engage in activies that will cause a drain on the health system , why should you not have to pay more to compensate for this?

Disagreeing with this means you advocate the abstaining of social responsibility.

And they should pay more for a second plane ticket. If your stomach touches both arm rests then you should pay for the second seat.

The problem with this sort of ideological view is how and where do you define the cut-off for "too fat". BMI is a crock of shit (every rugby player and a good chunk of AFL and HAL players would be classed as overweight or worse.)

Makes far more sense to tax the life out of high-risk habits. Tax processed sugars, fried foods and synthetic additives, put some of the profits into subsidising fresh and healthy food to make that even cheaper (and attractive) and the rest into the public health system to cover the burden of unhealthy members of society.

This.

Lose weight or pay dubs.

-PB

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Why does lollywood want to force his mum to spend more on health insurance?

rekt

I suspect that's a very small percentage of people.

Re taxing fatty products, you'll only succeed in making life even more difficult for the economically underprivileged.

-PB

no one should pay more than anyone else regardless of how they live their lives. Dickheads don't get higher Car or home and Content insurance because they're a higher risk.

Besides, These people are unlikely to have health insurance any way and there for are claiming everything claimable via Medicare. These People don't generally claim on preventative medications or treatments and overall die 10-15 years earlier than their counter parts so do not drain as much as you believe.

Old people who have lived a generally healthy life and have not had any great life threatening diseases like cancer are the biggest drain as they're out living previous generations by 10-30 years.

The fact that you're health means you're more likely to be a drain on the health system than not.

As a casual employee in tail, I think grossly fat people should pay more for everything. All their sizes are at the back of racks and bottom of neatly kept sizes. If you're quite large and someone helps you when buying clothes, it would be polite to tip the man extra dollar per item of clothing that you annoyingly want to look at or try on (if you're not buying then just leave) :lol:

/rant

Uhhhh yeah they do lol.

-PB

The fat tax.

Hockey wouldn't do it until he's hit the gym for a few months :lol:

-PB

where do you get a $1 burger lol

Not unless they claim on it.

If you say you're under 25 male with a V8 they will effectively class you as a dickhead and charge your more due to risk lol.

-PB

BMI is pretty much useless in reality, but insurance companies do use it anyway to determine risk. I’ve worked in the industry before, and remember a 110kg semi-pro baseballer who was considered ‘overweight’ but obviously many times fitter than the average person within the ‘healthy’ BMI range.

Another thing this ignores is that a lot of people within ‘healthy’ BMI ranges live unhealthy lifestyles, so it’s impossible to just tax fatties willy nilly, or at least fairly anyway. That said, fat people will generally be unhealthier and a few simple medical tests would confirm whether or not someone presents a high insurance risk.

you're confusing a Bogan stereotype with a Dickhead. Whilst Bogans are dickheads, not all dickheads are bogans.

Careful what you wish for.

Once they work out which combinations of genes cause which diseases (or raise the risk of getting them) it could be you that's refused or offered an extremely high health insurance premium based on the higher risk you present.

You could be the healthiest bloke on the block but if your grandad died of a hearty 40 years ago and those markers pop up in your genome well, you do the math.

Health insurance is basically you betting a company that something bad is going to happen to you. They're going to look at a fat person and go "no bet".

But we're not talking about genetic diseases, being fat is a choice that you willingly undertake.

Yes and no.

Go down to your local shopping centre and have a look around. The single biggest indicator of fat children is fat parents. Those poor kids are fat through a random act of the universe, that is, having been born to fat, likely low socio-economic, parents.

And once you're a fat kid statistics show you're likely to be a fat adult.

Irrespective of that my point is that if insurance companies start looking at fat people it won't be long before they're looking at your genome. And you'll be squealing like a stuck pig if you're the one knocked back because of some "determined" risk factor which may not even affect you in the future.

Besides any of that. What about blokes heavily into sport? I'm still very active and as such I'm far more likely to end up in a hospital ward with a knee recon or a broken arm or some other injury then some fat bastard playing world of warcraft on his PC.

I think fat people are borderline pathetic with a lack of self respect but I recognise that not all of them are going to be a drain on the health system or for that matter more of a drain on the health system than some other blokes.

If you're going to add a premium for fat people, and you want to be fair, don't forget these high risk drains on the health system;

smokers
mountain bikers
AFL'ers (weekend warriors)
NRL'ers types (weekend warriors)
Soccer players (weekend warriors)
rock climbers
motorcyclists
trail bike riders
drunks that end up in emergency wards
lawn bowlers
skiers and snowboarders
boaties
surfers
skaters
etc..
etc..
etc..

All of them clogging emergency wards every single weekend.

And as for smokers, disgusting habit that it is, don't forget that smokers, on average, die years before non-smokers, saving the taxpayer untold millions from living an extended life in hospitals, aged care facilities and on the pension.

As is usual the premise is an oversimplification of the actual situation.

As a doctor, I know that the people who clog emergency departments are old people, smokers, fat people, drug addicts, drunks and diabetics, with an overall general skew towards poor people.

Active weekend warriors may suffer the occasional injury in their pursuits, but these injuries are usually easily treated, and don't require admission to hospital.

Most lacerations, abrasions and fractures don't require admission to hospital.

That may be so but my point is if you are going to hit up fat bastards then, if you want to be fair, you need to hit up all these other blokes.

Opened this thread keen to read Joffa's opinion.

Disappointed.