If we were just talking about raw tobacco then this would be a very different discussion, but we are not.
All of the other things you are talking about while are health risks a don't carry an addictive and largely proven connection to cancer (maybe the sunscreen one but there is also a difference between making a conscious choice to do something instead of just not doing something).
There is clearly a massive societal cost associated with Smoking that I really don't think can be applied to many other things. The closest thing I can think of would be Alcohol but even that for most people is not on the same level as Smoking. At least I would not think so.
Overeating IMO has become a bigger problem than smoking, at least in the US.
It is a highly effective antidepressant for many people.
So you acknowledge something is addictive (indeed, nicotine is one of the most addictive things there is, by some measures more addictive than most any other drug) -- but think that is a reason to penalize addicts?
If something is really bad for your health but you choose to do it anyway, that's one thing -- but if we know how very very addictive it is, how very hard it is to stop doing it -- that's a special reason we should penalize addicts by charging them higher premiums?
I still don't get it.
(Presumably we should charge other kinds of addicts higher premiums too? Alcoholic? Problem with opioids? Those things will surely correlate with higher health care costs -- higher premium!)
[I haven't smoked in 47 months. It was very very hard to quit].
Smoking became the boogeyman in the early 90s. Everyone was brainwashed that smokers are weak/evil/a drain on society/less than/low class people and should be taxed until they stop being addicted somehow.
He doesn't smoke.
We can charge people for health insurance based on how healthily they eat, whether they consistently wear sunscreen, how much exercize they get, how dangerous their hobbies or habits are (motorcycle? skydiving? oh boy), etc etc.
In fact, health insurance in USA DID do things like that before the 2010 ACA -- but limited by incomplete information. With smartphone surveillance (hey, why not require smartphone surveillance to get a certain product), the amount of factors you could monitor and charge based on go up a lot.
Except the ACA prohibited this... EXCEPT for smoking, in fact. "I wish people who smoke could be charged more" for health insurance -- in fact, they CAN. It's about the only thing the ACA allows differential pricing on.
Why is smoking different to you, or to the policy-makers who decided on that in the ACA? I don't really get it.