Silly Me
““Well, we’re all different. Why should a smoker pay more?””—
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), when asked “Why should a woman pay more than a man [for health premiums]?” (via ohfortheloveofdog)
I guess I’ll have to remember the next time I’m born to select the y chromosome option. Silly me, making the choice to be a woman!
Why should I have to pay for contact lenses? I didn’t choose to have bad eyesight.
Why should I have to pay for restaurant food? I didn’t choose to be hungry.
Why should I have to pay my taxes? I didn’t choose to be born in this country.
Why should I have to buy health insurance under Obama’s plan? I didn’t choose Obama to be President.
Silly me. I’ve been paying for services based upon things like their market value.[1] This value is set by things like supply and demand. And these things are driven by things like cost and utility.
From now on, I’m not going to pay for things that I didn’t choose. (“Hey Mr. Umbrella man—hand one over. I didn’t choose for it to rain!”)
—
1. Or sometimes, because the government makes me buy it even if I don’t want it.
The reality is that there are cost differentials on a number of variables. It’s socially acceptable to pass some of those differentials on to consumers, but not others. You can’t charge someone more for health insurance because they’re a woman or because they’re gay. But you can charge smokers more.
Society has decided to make gay people and women protected classes. For all sorts of (mostly good) reasons. Society has decided to make the opposite decision about smokers for all sorts of (mostly good) reasons.
Deal with it.
