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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rambi who wrote (47710)	2/2/2008 3:48:38 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541403

For instance, a lot of insurance companies have started rewarding healthy habits - exercise, weightloss- by lowering premiums. There are problems writing rules for positive as well as negative reinforcement. If you lower the premium for someone who loses weight, what about the guy who stayed slim on his own? If you lower his rates, too, then you're effectively setting a higher rate for the fat guys. It may seem more positive on the surface but it's the same thing. If you raise rates for the fat, what about others who contribute to their own risk factors? What about those who play football or smoke or don't use condoms or get pregnant when diabetic? You can't just single out weight, even assuming that obesity is always the fault of the person, which it is not. Gets really messy. And that's in an insurance rate environment. If you mandate or forbid something by law, that's even worse. The best you can do without getting into a snarl, I think, is try to educate.