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Originally Posted by DGTess
I think everyone should be able to afford BASIC health care.
Those who want everyone to have extensive health care are trying to become a nanny state. "I pay for your insurance, and you're more likely to need care if you eat trans-fats, so I get to determine what you put in your mouth". That's scary.
UNRELATED, but allowing someone to dictate your very actions. This nanny-state mentality is what scares me most about the direction of our country.
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But isn't that what insurance companies do? They dictate what care you can and can't have based on how harmful it is the their profit margins.
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I think it's one thing if you are born with something like diabetes (because I believe people of different backgrounds/sizes/ages/etc can get it) or any other chronic illnesses and can't control it, but if you are doing things to your body to make yourself way more susceptical to things like lung cancer, then yea, I'd say you're also considered a "risk" in the health-insurer's eyes and it makes sense for you to pay a higher cost.
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Diabetes has 2 types. Type 1 (the type I have) is less about genetic factors. Mine was caused by an auto-immune response to an illness I had as a child. Type 2 (previously called adult-onset, but now type 2 because more and more children are getting it), is influenced by genetic and lifestyle factors.
We're all at "risk" for one thing or another. Lift stuff all day? Back problems. Walk a lot? Hip problems. Computer work? Carpal Tunnel. Woman? Pregnancy. Some people are just genetically pre-disposed to certain cancers. Diseases are caused by thing we've really yet to uncover, and in some cases can't avoid. I wouldn't be able to look at someone with lung cancer and say, "no mate, sorry, you've done this to yourself because you didn't avoid enough". To me, it's not really on to chastize people about the choices we make (how many of us have had a drink? you're at risk for x number of diseases)...its good to encourage best practices (nutritional information, exercise information, etc)...but to just outright deny or have to determined who did enough to avoid their disease...I wouldn't want that job.