In this or similar situations, is it somehow not only morally acceptable but an active moral requirement to insist that everyone else subsidize, in this case, homosexuals?
Economics professor Walter Williams constantly seems to be thinking bad thoughts. He expresses the kind of thoughts that would make any decent, respectable person back away. The kind of thoughts based on economics and math, not sentiment.…
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26 - jadester
you can prove almost anything from a study, if you choose your subjects correctly.
Any chance of info on how many people were involved? how they were chosen? has the study been repeated? if so, what were the results? if not, why not?
27 - Mac Diva
Jade, if you read through the middle of thread, that is discussed. The 'methodolgy' was pretty embarassing -- not at all scientific.
28 - Steve Rhodes
Sure, gay people may have shorter lives. There also may be life on Mars. We don't have proof of either.
And you may or may not be aware of this (there is a large gay community in Indianpolis), but gays and lesbians are very diverse. They probably are even more heterogenious than most groups.
Any insurance company would be stupid to charge homosexuals more. The resulting boycott, negative publicity would be far more costly that any savings the company might have even if your hypothesis were true.
29 - Al Barger
So then Mr Rhodes, you would rely on public pressure via threat of boycott. The theory then would seem to be that people will demand that the insurer carefully CHOOSE to ignore that factor, and jack up costs for everybody else, fearing an emotionally motivated boycott would cost them more business than would the increase in prices for everyone else to subsidize the high risk group.
Am I misunderstanding you?
Now, I know you don't want to accept the likely possibility that gays have statistically low life expectancy. Diva suggests that people connected with one study of life expectancy have problems with gays. That does not, however, disprove their work or make them dishonest, nor does it address the other study.
I would be open to seeing counter-evidence suggesting equal or close lifespans between gays and straights, but no such has been offered.
Again, my point is not to demonize gays, but to ask about the politics of group identity and how they impact private insurers. Are private businesses expected to subsidize general societal squishy emotions of wanting to make nice with [INSERT NAME OF FAVORED VICTIM/INTEREST GROUP HERE]?
People with a family history of cancer are going to be denied life insurance, or charged exhorbitant rates. It's not their fault- but it's not Mutual of Omaha's fault either. Men have shorter life expectancy than women, smokers than non. Whether they reflect personal choices or not, those things are statistical indicators of risk. Is it somehow a moral obligation of MoO to charge everybody the same for insurance, no matter the risk factors- young and old, sickly and healthy alike?
Or is the standard supposed to be that the insurers are only allowed to base premiums on factors that don't violate the squishy feelings of all the nice people gathered round to hold hands singing Kum Ba Frickin' Ya?
30 - Eric Olsen
A few random thoughts on this: I am certain that the life expectancy of male homosexuals took a real hit when the AIDs epidemic really hit in the '80s - just anecdotally, I knew a lot of people who died then but not too many since. I would guess the discrepancy beween gays and the rest of the population has narrowed considerably since. Also, if you factor in lesbians, I would think that would make a huge statistical difference as they would have relatively few AIDS deaths, and women simply live longer.
Another factor would be the "marriage penalty": people not in long-term, committed relationships tend to live shorter lives - another factor in favor of gay marriage.
I would also think for this to have any real actuarial meaning, it would have to broken down much farther than just "homosexual."
31 - Ricky
This is sorta strange, IMO.
On top of being eerily similar to the question of insurance companies charging black at a higher rate because of the preponderance of sickle-cell, lesbians have the lowest rate of HIV infection, so they're quite healthy.
Lastly, homosexuality cannot (at this time) be scientifically determined. There are no medical tests that show that Elton John is gay - but he's still gay. Thus, anyone can simply say that they're straight on their insurance form & if they got AIDS could easily say that it was a one-time-thing & little is accomplished other than stigmatizing gays, sanctioning the punishment of gay sex and trivializing AIDS in an effort to give a negative connotation to gay males (mathematically, that's who'd be the subject).
I'll leave it at that & exit before I get attacked personally.