They can still qualify for the other 3 discounts. The other behaviors are rounding error in terms of their impact on healthcare spending as a percent of GDP. Everything else people discuss is purely about shifting who’s paying the bill. It does nothing to actually lower healthcare spending as a percent of GDP. I think of it as a pareto chart. 80% of the spending falls into the chronic disease bucket. Then there’s a ton of little items that make up a long, long tail. If we want to lower spending, the most effective thing to do is tackle the bucket that’s 80% of spending. Even a 10% reduction there would reduce total spending by 8%.
No relationship whatever between cholesterol and health. My total is 285 and Kaiser isn’t urging me to do anything about it; no statins, nothing. BMI - only matters if it’s 30 or greater. Blood pressure - a very specific problem easily addressed. Smoker - depends. Smoke more than 6 cigarettes a day? Then yes. Six or less? Statistical noise.
Oh and by the way - living longer doesn’t make you cost the system less - it makes you cost the system more.
Ever spoken with a health care professional who deals with Medicare paperwork? MUCH worse than private insurers and they deny claims at more than twice the rate. They also under-reimburse, driving up everyone else’s costs… No evidence that single payer is cheaper - none. It just puts the government in charge of your health care - something you don’t want if you can help it. Talk to a few Brits. Or even Canadians if they’ve ever had to deal with anything that wasn’t minor or very straightforward.
Truth is different, it has relationship.
Cholesterol uncontrolled deposits at veins/arteries that is leading to heart (and head). Over the years deposits accumulate and reduce the pipe diameter to small that comes out as high blood pressure.
If veins leading to heart is blocked, by this cholesterol, high pressure introduces heart attack.
If veins leading to head is blocked, by this cholesterol, high pressure introduces stroke.
This is like slow poison, people will never know until they get hit, by that time it is too late for them to react. Deposits can not be reduced or hard to reduce. Doctors used to prescribe blood thinner that takes years to reduce the deposits.
High BMI introduces additional pumping load to heart and reflects the same way leading to Heart attack or Stroke !
Health awareness and preventive is very important !
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Do we have conservatives advocating social engineering? 
Simpler solution is to tax all health insurance plans, whether they are provided by employers or bought directly by employees. Right now users of health care are not paying for the cost of their coverage. They have zero incentive to shop around or moderate their usage.
Do this simple thing first and see if we can at least bend the cost curve down a bit. If it doesn’t work we can talk about taxing fat people. I lost 40 pounds 2 years ago. I am all for taxing fat people more. We also need to tax skiers more. I heard they often break their legs. 
It seems people are determined to socialize the risk of healthcare costs. If we are going to do that, then it’s reasonable to want people to be responsible about their health. Encouraging people to be healthier even lowers total cost for everyone. That or you go completely free market and allow health insurers to price based on risk like auto insurers do. Liberals would NEVER agree to that. I personally don’t see why I should pay higher premiums to cover people who choose to be super unhealthy. Imagine if everyone got the same car insurance bill regardless of zip code or driving record. What sort of driving behaviors would that encourage?
@acre The CDC would disagree with you.
Healthcare should be low cost and rationed…Let rich people pay for better care…The poor already get free care. …Nobody is turned away at emergency rooms…The middle class gets screwed…especially self employed
Cholesterol circulating in your blood doesn’t necessarily clog veins or arteries. It must be evaluated in the context of other risk factors. Plenty of people can have high cholesterol and blood vessels clean as a whistle when they’re in their 80’s and 90’s and use of statins to lower cholesterol has been correlated with development of Parkinson’s disease…
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If I took up smoking and binge drinking but sold my motorcycle I would likely lower my risk profile 
healthcare free, lodging free, food/ beverage/ clothes (UBI) free, education free… no wonder taxing the rich heavily is not enough, still need to print money.
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The problem with conservative people is that they hate government intervention but alas! Here they are, telling people they should exercise, do preventive care, etc. in order to get incentives or tax credits.
You are as socialist as the people you scald.
When it comes to fat people, we should start at the top of the human chain.
You really are the king of misrepresenting info.
Does Obamacare exist if insurers don’t offer policies for it?
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I am on the side of the group that says you can’t get away from government intervention. Deal with it, but that’s the truth.
What we are seeing with this health care is that this administration want to sell anything to the private market, including our environment. We were the great America because we had a government interested in our well being.
How can you ask people to take care of themselves by following a diet, do exercise, etc. when our government is killing us by finishing with EPA, the agency that is keeping our waters clean, our smog in control, and on and on.
Trust me on that, you can be the healthiest guy on earth, but you will die with monoxide gas in your lungs. We are not far from becoming so polluted, all in the name of money.
The stupidity of all is to read anybody complaining of the insurers leaving. Why don’t you blame them for not staying and make a decent profit, instead of giving golden parachutes to their CEOs.
I guess you didn’t read that last year they lost over $300M on ACA patients. So what do you mean by staying and making a profit? Insurers are losing hundreds of mi8llions selling ACA policies.
America became great BEFORE we had big government. Government spending was <5% of GDP when we became the biggest economy in the world. Do people realize how rogue the EPA has gone? They want to regulate puddles. Yes, please regulate puddles. That’ll save the planet. They arbitrarily pass rules without even requiring congress to pass them. It’s become a way to avoid proper legislation.
We got to keep ourselves fit and healthy, drink lots of water, exercise, etc. right?
But, who is the idiot accepting this?
This photo was taken yesterday at Stoney Fork Creek, in Bell County, Kentucky, downstream of a Revelation Energy coal mine. Revelation Energy is the same company that operates the strip mines adjacent to Kanawha State Forest that have caused widespread water pollution.
Revelation is owned by Jeff Hoops of Milton, WV, who has made millions destroying mountains and streams in WV and eastern KY.
The blood red color is caused by Potassium Permanganate (a water treatment additive) mixed with acid mine drainage.
Have you ever been to Kentucky or Appalachia…one of the poorest places in the country…Everyone is on public assistance thanks to environmentalists. …It is not as simple as a photograph…Even Love canal was overhyped by liberal bullshit
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Worth the reading. For those smart enough and with guts to understand they are BSing with their attitude.
I guess that “article” should be labeled “opinion” or “editorial”. The entire foundation seemed to be the belief that healthcare is a universal human right. It actually didn’t go into any analysis of how US healthcare spending would benefit from universal care. They’re also ignoring free-market, elective procedures which are lower in cost than 20 years ago. They’re also ignoring that the US funds healthcare R&D for the whole world. If there aren’t US profits available, then how many new treatments would be researched? Their explanation of why states can’t provide universal coverage is iffy. States can’t solve it, so toss it to the federal government to solve. Yeah, that’s a brilliant idea.
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No, it is not opinion nor editorial, for the idiots in the Twhitler administration these news are called fake news because they talk about reality. Now, if it were from Brainfarts, you would be jumping on one foot calling them legitimate.
I just laugh at the stupidity of some people commenting something they know, but hide from their conversations to look like winners. And of winning we are tired lately…
Adding salt to injury, these same ignorant people deny helping their fellow human beings, but stupidly enough hiding the fact that entire corporations receive subsidies enough to keep the population under a good healthcare program. Yes, throw a few $ billions to oil companies that either are dumb or playing possum since it seems they need money FROM THE GOVERNMENT to keep operating. Entire families including government officials in current and past administrations receive $ billions in subsidies. And they talk about “government solving whatever”.
SPEAKING OF SUBSIDIES, I FOUND THIS NICE TOPIC:
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Boeing: $13,174,075,797
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General Motors: $3,494,237,703
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Royal Dutch Shell: $2,038,202,298
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Dow Chemical: $1,408,228,374
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Goldman Sachs: $661,979,222 <----Goldman Sachs is getting away with murder folks said Twhitler, to hire them later…
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Google: $632,044,922
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Walt Disney: $381,525,727
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Wal-Mart Stores: $149,942,595
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Abercrombie and Fitch: $23,070,479
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Bed Bath & Beyond: $10,385,041 <-------bye bye! Not even with subsidies they could play?
5 Goldman Sachs: $661,979,222 <----Goldman Sachs is getting away with murder folks said Twhitler, to hire them later…I almost pee in my underwear when I read such statement.
Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, arrives at the White House for a meeting with Obama on the debt ceiling and economy.
Hey, remember that company that essentially caused the whole recession a few years ago and then managed to get billions in bailout money from the federal government because the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve were both stacked with the company’s former CEOs and high-level employees? Well, just so you know, they also do pretty well in the subsidies department. Goldman Sachs has raked in over $660 million, mostly from their home state of New York, but with some help from New Jersey, Utah and Michigan as well. Hooray!
But Benghazi, but emails, but subsidies…right!
Ain’t that a great idea? Poor people can’t receive subsidies, but Walmart? Really?