Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking
by rat9988 on Friday April 19, 2019 @06:00AM
(#19698244)
It should. I believe you should pay more if you have unhealthy life style. First implement a good universal health care, second make people making the wrong choices (smoking is a wrong choice, being old is not) pay more.
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Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking
by pm90 on Friday April 19, 2019 @11:11AM
(#19700229)
There is substantial research that says that conditional care like what you propose is often used as a cudgel to deny Government assistance to those that need it the most.
In other words, I think the cost of putting in these guardrails, often with good intentions, is that they're misused against minorities and the poor. If that's the case, I would rather a few freeloaders/bad decision makers abuse it rather than the most needy going without the healthcare they desperately want.
Re:After a $14B Upgrade, New Orleans’ Levees Are Sinking
by amanaplanacanal on Friday April 19, 2019 @10:47AM
(#19700049)
It's tricky. For instance: My understanding is that people who smoke tend to die younger, and therefore spend less for healthcare over their lifetime than people who don't. So why should they pay more?
Then there is the whole question of "what is an unhealthy lifestyle?" It seems likely that not getting enough exercise is probably unhealthy, but diet advice is all over the place. You need better science than we have now to make these decisions.