It does bring up something I think is worth considering. If you take handouts from government shouldn't they have more control in your life? Say you get free health care from the government, maybe they should be able to say you can't smoke or you lose your freebie.
I absolutely think recipients of welfare and other government social programs should have their expenditures monitored, and that data used to determine future eligibility.
Like Barto says, when applied to health care it does raise other concerns. The reality is, regardless of whether or not they're paying into the hypothetical system, a huge, huge percentage of debilitating health care expenses are incurred as a result of poor lifestyle choices, to varying degrees. And nobody likes the idea of being told exactly how to take care of him/herself on a day to day basis.
-J
Indeed. It's not just Obamacare. The 400lb diabetic chain smoker is a big part of the premiums the average, healthy 25 year old pays into their group policy. If that person's not insured, then it's our tax dollars that are treating him. Either way, we're paying for him.
We do pay through private insurance to cover others, so having an insurance policy with a carrier that has a a lot of unhealthy lifestyle people raises cost.. However, underwriting is there to evaluate the risks of policies. It's not perfect, but decent insurance companies do vary coverage costs based on your risk to them. That mitigates your costs from more risky policy holders than you.
I didn't intend my original post as something for Obamacare specifically. If a risky person pays for insurance privately, then that's up to the business to dictate the costs. If someone voluntarily takes a freebie, they should be subject to control. If you can't pay with money, you can pay by reducing your cost to others. ...or some similar statement for other situations. Receiving freebie's can't be a desirable situation if you want them to work.