Saturday, April 2, 2011
On the Ethics of Arizona Medicaid Charging Smokers and the Obese an Extra Fee
Posted by Find Insurance Online at 4:35 AMMSNBC reports that “Arizona's cash-strapped Medicaid program is considering adding a $50 tax on single patients who smoke, have diabetes or are overweight. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment program spokeswoman Monica Coury says the tax is intended to push patients to take better care of themselves. Coury says the issue is getting at the cost of health care while trying to stretch dollars and get people to take better care. ‘If you're not going to manage those things and take some personal responsibility, and in turn that costs the state more money, then you need to have some skin in the game,’ Coury said. . . . ‘You need to be responsible for the fact that your smoking costs us more.’ . . . State Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Phoenix says it isn't fair to charge diabetics $50. Sinema says the fee fines people who may have medical conditions beyond their control. . . . The changes are part of a major revamp of Arizona's Medicaid program to find funds to restore transplant coverage — eliminated amid much controversy [in the fall of 2010].”
Ethical Analysis:
Focusing here on the ethical dimension of the proposed changes, I lay aside here the worthy question of whether the proposed changes are the optimal way to restore transplant coverage, or, more generally, to make up the funding shortfall facing Arizona’s Medicaid program. Ethically speaking, Coury’s reference to personal responsibility clashes head-on with Sinema’s claim of the conditions being beyond the patients’ control. Responsibility presumes that the agent has control over that which he or she is to be responsible. It makes no sense, for example, to hold President Obama responsible for the weather (unless the federal government has a top-secret way of controlling and changing the weather over U.S. territory).
In terms of smoking, the question is perhaps whether a drug addict has control of his or her addiction. To be addicted, according to the World English Dictionary, is to be dependent on something. Meriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary asserts that dependence in turn involves being “unduly subject to the influence of another.” The question is thus whether being “unduly subject to” implies or involves the loss of control as opposed to merely control being more difficult. The qualifier of “unduly” suggests being subject to something excessively, according to the World English Dictionary. This does not signify the loss of control. Therefore, ethically speaking, smokers can be held responsible for their addiction to nicotine even though it is very difficult for them to quit. That smokers have quit demonstrates that those who do not quit cannot fall back on the fallacy that they have no control over their addiction. So to the extent that the smokers cost others, it is ethical to charge smokers more.
With regard to diabetes and obesity, a distinction can be made in terms of control. Losing weight, if only from restricting the quantity (and types) of food ingested, is within a person’s interval of control unless the excess weight if due to a disease and cannot be lost without risking the loss of minimal nourishment and health. I suspect that this qualification is misapplied by overweight people who presume that their “condition” is a result of an illness when over-eating (as well as a refusal to exercise) is the actual cause. Such persons, doubtless the overwhelming majority of obese people, can be distinguished ethically from those whose excessive weight is caused by a disease and cannot be lost without risk to one’s health and perhaps even life.
Apart from the illness caveat, the argument that overweight people have no control over their excess weight is effectively countered by the success that people have had in losing weight. Prima facie, one can reduce one’s consumption even in the midst of a presumed overwhelming urge to eat more. Therefore, it is ethical to hold overweight people responsible for their weight, and thus to charge them more if they cost others more. Diabetics are a more complex case.
Regarding obesity and (the ensuing?) diabetes, it may be that once a patient has the disease, nothing she could do would cure her of the disease. Otherwise, the person’s failure to reduce his weight while diabetic would be a basis for holding the person responsible not only for remaining overweight, but also for suffering from worsening diabetes. Furthermore, if being overweight is necessary for the onset of the disease, the diabetic could be presumed to be responsible for having developed the disease, and thus properly charged more for having it treated. However, to the extent that overweight people do not necessarily become diabetic, it may not be reasonable to assume that an overweight person should have acted to avert what is a mere possibility. In terms of a diabetic’s choices, if losing weight lessens or eliminates the (chances of, or continuance of) the sickness and the diabetic does not lose weight, a diabetic could rightly be held responsible and thus properly charged for the extra cost borne by others.
A few nuances should be made transparent. First, if the charges are not merely to reimburse others for the increased cost, but also to manipulate the “offender” to change his or her ways, it can be asked whether such manipulation is itself ethical and effective. If a person believes that his addiction, eating habits, or disease is a “condition” rather than a result of his choice, then it is unlikely that he would suppose that having to pay more would have anything to do with even a potential change in his “condition.” In other words, a link in the chain of reasoning presumed in the manipulation would not exist for the person to be manipulated. Moreover, manipulation itself may be unethical unless, as in Kant’s categorical imperative, the rational being to be manipulated is treated not merely as a means, but also as an end in herself. If the end includes the patient recovering, this criterion may well be satisfied in Arizona’s proposal. In such a case, the noxious smell of manipulation may still pass the smell test.
Second, throughout this analysis, I have been assuming that the additional charges can be afforded by the patients and/or their insurance companies. If a patient cannot afford the extra fee and still provide for necessities such as food, shelter and obviously health care, as well as incidentals, then a basic human rights factor intercedes and it could be quite unethical to impose the fine/fee. Relatedly, to the extent that Arizona’s proposal involves reducing the number of enrollees in Medicaid, the goal itself may be unethical from the standpoint of the human right to survival, or life.
Third, if smokers and obese people are to be held responsible for their choices in health-care policy, it would be unethical to be selective in leaving out other choices that have negative consequences in terms of health (and cost). Even so, consistency zealously pursued can put the government into all of our lives with the result being that we have lost our liberty. That is, we might ask ourselves whether there is not a slippery slope involved in opening up our various decisions to governmental overview and charges. The imposition itself could be regarded as unethical, especially in a free society. Yet being forced to pay for the egregious choices made by others, such as by smokers and obese people, can also be regarded as involving an unethical transfer of responsibility. Accordingly, it is well and good, ethically speaking, that a society makes judgment calls respecting how far “egregious” extends. Being a matter of judgment and balance, there is no pre-established line in the sand to be sought in making this determination.
In conclusion, my ethical analysis supports the proposition that smokers and overweight people can be held accountable for their smoking and obesity, respectively, and perhaps even for being diabetic to the extent that mitigating the illness is within the patient’s previous or, more strongly, current control. This conclusion is of course beset by conditions. However, they do not deprive my conclusion of its main thrust—namely, that society has an ethical basis, and thus a right, to hold smokers and overweight people responsible for their inherently unhealthy choices by imposing an extra fee for government-supported health-care. To treat either smokers or the obese as somehow simply affected by, rather than as the agents of, their smoking or obesity is to engage in the subterfuge of an ideological agenda in the guise of science. Such a cloak is of course highly unethical.
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