Is it fair for insurance companies to charge higher premiums to smokers and/or obese people

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It Is Unethical For Smokers and Obese to Pay Higher Premiums Student Name: Institutional Affiliation: Date: Research indicates that obesity and smoking related illnesses consumes hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the United States health care expenditures and lost productivity (Madison, Volpp & Halpern, 2011). Given the high levels of economic and medical tolls of smoking, it is not surprising that more than 50 percent of the American people may favor imposing higher health insurance rates to smokers and obese people to provide them with further incentives that will make them stop smoking. The Affordable care Act (ACA) signed by President Barack Obama, allows all the employers providing health insurance and the private and public health insurers to impose higher insurance premiums of up to 50 percent higher rates (Madison, Schmidt & Volpp, 2013). A utilitarian argument may point out that increasing the premium charges of smokers may encourage most of the smokers to quit the act, thus promoting public health and reduce the costs incurred on smoking in the country’s budget. Other studies also indicate that introducing monetary incentives is likely to increase the rate of smoking cessation among the members of a given society. However, I disagree with these views since I consider this move as unfair to the people who smoke or the obese people. These groups of individuals have their individual right and freedom to conduct themselves as they wish and no one should come up with incentives that will hinder them from enjoying their freedom. Recently President Barack Obama in the introduction of Obamacare maintained that Americans ought to be made to

Free Is it fair for insurance companies to charge higher premiums to smokers and/or obese people Essay Sample

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