rs123- i agree with you in principle, but in practice how do you manage this? the only way insurance companies know about smoking is self reporting. so people could report and pay more, or they could not report and pay less. you could argue that if they don't report, then when getting sick they should be denied coverage. that's the same as not having them insured at all though...and we know uninsured people result in great costs to society (as long as we keep it illegal for emergency rooms to deny service anyway).

so while i think government should not be in the business of protecting us from ourselves, in cases where there is great $ cost to taxpayers i see the necessity.