Insurance Penalties For Smokers Draw Wide Support

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When it comes to improving health, there are carrots and there are sticks. One way to try to influence people's habits is by tying how much they pay for health coverage to their behavior. Starting next year, for instance, Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, will charge workers who smoke a penalty ranging from 260 to 2,340 annually on health insurance. That's a pretty big stick. As for a carrot, the retailer will offer free smoking-cessation help. We wondered how moves like Wal-Mart's, which are becoming more common, are going over. So we asked more than 3,000 adults across the U.S. in the latest NPR-Thomson Reuters Health Poll. &nbsp; A solid <a href="http://www.uggbootmalls.com/ugg-short-boots-c-276.html"><strong>ugg boots</strong></a> majority — 59 percent — say that smokers should pay more for health insurance than nonsmokers. Nearly three-quarters of people in households with with annual income of 100,000 or more a year say smokers should pay more. Seventy percent of those with at least a college degree support higher rates for smokers. How do the smokers feel? Slightly less than a third of them support higher fees for health insurance. Americans aren't too keen on higher charges for people who are overweight or obese. Some 69 percent are opposed to that, leaving 31 percent in favor. <a href="http://www.uggbootmalls.com/ugg-tall-boots-c-278.html"><strong>winter boot</strong></a> People with at least a college degree and those living in 100,000-plus households were more likely to support a penalty. But the majority in all groups opposed higher fees for the overweight. The question may have hit too close to home for some. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, about in line with the proportion in the poll that opposes higher insurance fees for the group. Is it OK not to hire people because they are overweight or obese? Nope. Only 11 percent of those surveyed said that was a good idea compared <a href="http://www.uggbootmalls.com/products_all.html"><strong>ugg</strong></a> with 89 percent against it. Overall, people prefer insurance discounts for positive behavior over penalties for those who stray from the road to good health. Eighty-five percent of people polled support insurance breaks for people on the right track compared with 15 percent who are against them. The telephone poll was conducted during the first half of September. The margin for error is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Click here to read the questions and full results. You can find the previous polls here.