Is this the future for health insurance? According to FOXNews.com workers may have to start proving they are improving their health or pay out. The article says that "starting in 2009, Clarian will begin charging workers extra for insurance if they let health risks such as smoking, obesity or high cholesterol go unchecked." Workers who fail to do nothing about improving their health risks will be charged more "if they can't prove they're working to improve their health."
It's not new that managed health care plans have been using screening methods and offering clinics to improve the health of their customers but it is new for a health insurance company to require proof of a healthier lifestyle from their customers.
No way out. Those who succeed in quitting smoking often gain enough weight to move from normal to overweight, or from overweight to obese. The MRFIT study experimented with using diet and smoking cessation to prevent diabetes. Those who succeeded in quitting smoking developed hypertension and became diabetic at a much higher rate (despite their improved diet). So if the insurance companies are losing revenue because people quit smoking and don’t have to pay a higher premium, they just start charging a higher premium for the conditions caused by smoking cessation.