TedPage: Aversion to risk

Mike Miliard wrote this article about the tyranny of health. He claims that actions like smoking bans and employeers concerned about hiring smokers are limitations on lifestyle choices that should be protected. He believes that this is a prohibitionist agenda lead by religious voters. While, in some regards I agree with him (although, I hate people smoking around me) I think this steams from something entirely different, a culture of aversion to risk.

I think that this has come from all the lawsuits, well, for pretty much everything. Could I sue a bar that I hung out regularly at if they allowed smoking and I got lung cancer? Perhaps. But, this also comes down to employeers looking at the cost of their health plans. Does someone who is overweight or a smoker end up costing them more? Yes, it does. Those people are more likely to make claims against the health insurance, costing them in the long run. This also effects government programs like medicare/medicade -- so it does become a tax payer issue.

A friend of mine, who is working at a startup, they had one of their key technology people who wasn't in great shape. This was a concern for them. If something happened to him, their entire business would be on shaky ground. They bought him a membership to a health club, and encouraged him to go. I don't know if this is discriminatory, it is a very real situation where they just wanted to protect their business.

I'm not entire sure what the complete solution was. My favorite coffee shop in Arizona had smoking on the patio. Although I loved sitting outside and enjoying the lake, sitting in the smoke was always a turn off. Sometimes I did it, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. I hope that a reasonable compromise can be found, insurance companies need to be limited. I think I'll vote for the drunkards a little, just to balance things out.