Will health insurers deny claims related to cancer if you have been drinking alcohol? Good luck living in that world.

So yes, one would expect to be in their commercial interest to deny cancer claims to people who willingly put themselves at excessive risk of cancer at some point in the future. It's the infinite wisdom of the free market!

I'm not aware of any other risky behaviors that exclude coverage, so this would be a precedent.

Do you think it's unfair that smokers pay more for life insurance?

> Quitting alcohol is nowhere as easy as getting covid vaccines

you have a choice to buy the next bottle or not, as far as I know. It's not like addiction is unavoidable. And cancer risk for alcohol consumption is not even related to addiction, you increase your risk of cancer significantly even with a small, non-zero consumption of alcohol. Look at the data.

I have never seen a person trying hard to get vaccinated with available vaccines all around them unable to do so. I have seen people attempt to lose weight. The fact that it’s big business is a testament to this.

Sexual behavior, well yea there is careless behavior but also deceit. How would you tell the difference?

With vaccines, the end goal is to get people to get the vaccine so they can live their normal lives. There is no one time simple action someone can take to prevent obesity. There is no vaccine for all stds I’m aware of.

For example, a smoker who is not actively engaged in a smoking cessation program or someone who is morbidly obese by choice and not actively engaged in a medical weight loss program should be paying higher health-insurance premiums to offset their increased costs. (The former is not uncommon and while the latter may be controversial it is not necessarily a niche perspective. [1])

So yes, I think the same logic should apply to individuals who choose not to receive vaccines.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19548556/

Isn’t that the argument?

Insurance companies have to toe the thin line between a business and a social good. With prediction models to become more and more accurate I would be happier if we have non-profit insurance that amortizes/socializes the draw of the lottery. For voluntary choices of risky behavior, drug addiction, unsafe sex, etc etc., I think insurance companies are within their rights to charge more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/nyregion/covid-vaccine-bl...

Edit: Added "young" adjective that was missing, point remains.

I am very much against the forced vaccinations of people, and I very much abhor what is happening in Canada (where I live) with the vaccine passports and the making of the unvaccinated second class citizens. But don't make the term racism a worthless term by using it for everything. It's counterproductive.

I say all this as a black Trinidadian immigrant that lives in Canada. I am vaccinated myself, but many black people I know are not.

I am saying though, that if you unilaterally denied COVID care to non-vaccinated patients, that would be the equivalent of denying service to ~70% of "young black people," which would be easy bait for people calling that racist. Which is why the health system probably won't do it.

This is not what the article you’ve cited says.

(I am vaccinated please don't post hot takes about how I am a anti-vaxer.)

If it was a policy that's based on something that the Black people can't change about them (e.g. refusal to entry to a club based on your address, with majority black areas of town being in that list), and it disadvantages them, yes that'd be racist. But in this case, the Black people (or whoever) can easily change it by getting vaxed...

Regarding the latter, it's not difficult to create a policy that's non-racist in construction, but has reliably racist results. Correlated parameters, etc. Whether anything can or should be done about it is a thornier question.

IMO this sentiment is just another manifestation of the overwhelming desire to punish the unvaccinated, rather than being based on clear thinking.

https://twitter.com/bupauk/status/1368841967086473216

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ExeyKpEW8AEDAdg?format=jpg&name=...

There's lately though talk about unvaccinated COVID patients bearing the cost nonetheless. Note that public health system is for free.

In my country (also EU) the public health system is most definitely not "free". It is paid for by a universal tax called (insidiously and inaccurately) "health insurance".

> There's lately though talk about unvaccinated COVID patients bearing the cost nonetheless.

Calls for true insurance (individualized, based on actual health and habits) are completely infeasible for political reasons.

What I can see happening is the existing mandatory health tax PLUS extra payments for non-grata groups. Some constitutional changes may be needed, but since all the right people would profit (extra $$$), that's just a technical detail in this day and age.

1. public health system will take care of you to its abilities (which to a large extent are defined by the taxation yes)

2. no private insurer is paying or covering anything COVID-related and they never did

3. been trying to get private insurance on top of the public one and I'm told time and again that a few systems of mine will be excluded (i.e. they won't insure me for anything bearing the remotest possibility of actually needing them for). Also that I am too old to start now...

if anything is clear from the COVID story in my mind is that we need a better and more capable public health system. Private healthcare is not about health or care.

... but yes, they definitely already do similar things to influence customer behavior (such as discounts on weight loss programs).