Well, let’s ask a pertinent question: how long after the Surgeon General’s report did it take for health insurance companies to start asking whether or not you smoked?
Calm the hell down. My point was that it’s not like there’s the “Big Government Actuarial Table” that all insurance companies use to set their rates. They all have their own tables derived by their own actuarial staffs, and they use these tables to determine what they think the risk is for various situations, and fine tune their rates accordingly.
It’s not much of a stretch to say that some obvious risk factors like smoking and obesity are probably considered high risks on all of them, and that’s why they want to know those things.
They probably also have much more intricate calculations for the rest of us who don’t smoke 3 packs a day and consider bacon a food group, especially if they can get more information about you.
So, then, the actual difference between the tables they use and the math they calculate with is relatively minor, a matter of fine tuning to eke out even the smallest advantage?