I think the idea of that is the right direction, try to find a way to penalize people who don't take care of themselves as well as they should, and therefore raise the medical costs for everyone else

I think it would be a slippery slope, how many cigarettes makes you a smoker? How do you define obesity?

Think it would be better handled as a tax on the products themselves, as our earlier discussion about tobacco tax, and junk food

that way it wouldn't be as likely to be misused in the hands of the insurance companies, and the tax would be an incentive for the makers of Twinkie and soda pop companies to make their products healthier

as you may remember, my wife teaches film in a university. Last year, there were a number of calamities from the students during their shoots, one quite serious, and as a result, the insurance companies, have not only raised the premiums, but given them new restrictions on what types of film scripts they can produce

the students now have to submit their scripts to the insurance company, to be judged on the basis of the safety of the production, for instance, they can no longer shoot scenes with anyone driving a car! Deemed too risky! So I think they have used this as an opportunity to not just protect their profits, but to increase them..

Dow