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State of Alabama: ‘get in shape or pay up fattie’

Posted by Trevor in under other on Aug 22nd, 2008 | View Comments |

Alabama is about to begin charging state employees $25 a month for being overweight.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Alabama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favorites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat.

The state has given its 37,527 employees a year to start getting fit — or they’ll pay $25 a month for insurance that otherwise is free.

Alabama will be the first state to charge overweight state workers who don’t work on slimming down, while a handful of other states reward employees who adopt healthy behaviors.

Alabama already charges workers who smoke — and has seen some success in getting them to quit — but now has turned its attention to a problem that plagues many in the Deep South: obesity.

A woman stands outside a sandwich shop. Scientists have found ...

While I like the idea of providing incentives to be healthy, I am uncomfortable with the idea of charging penalties for being unhealthy. From a libertarian perspective, I want the most choices possible. On the other hand, insurance companies who have to treat fat people are either going to charge the fat people or spread the cost of the treatments around. That means I might have to pay for someone else to be fat. I’m not that interested in paying for the health care of others, particularly when the health issues are self-induced.

It is not my job to pay for you to be fat, anymore than it should be my job to pay for your children’s upbringing.

Incentives are much more appealing than penalities though. My company recently paid for me to enter a triathlon. For $48, the company motivated me to train heavily for three months. I dropped an inch off my waist and nine pounds off my frame. Long-term I’ve signed up for another triathlon and I’ve joined a gym near work. If the company had instead threatened me with wage garnishment I would have fought tooth and nail against them. My personal productivity would have declined and I would have been likely to complain and spread dissension.

Mac McArthur, executive director of Alabama State Employees Association, said the plan is not designed to punish employees.

“It’s a positive,” he said.

Taking money away from someone is a positive? This guy has been smoking some government ganja.

Bureaucrats are always good at using penalties to try and force people to make good choices, but they hardly ever choose positive incentives as a motivator. Why is that?

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Trevor

Edward,

Agreed. $25 per person is very low. The article stated that those employees pay nothing otherwise - that's because they have government insurance which doesn't rely on market rates.

Edward

Another libertarian here.

I see nothing wrong with this. Fat people are a larger health insurance liability, they should pay more for coverage. I agree with you that government officials shouldn't be setting the incentive though, the market should. However, if it does cost $25 per month more on average to keep a fat person healthy, then that's what it should be. Although I suspect it's even more. Would be fairer to just have people pay their own health insurance instead of the companies though, and in the process have them individually evaluated and get some of the 50 million without insurance back on.

T F Stern

"Bureaucrats are always good at using penalties to try and force people to make good choices, but they hardly ever choose positive incentives as a motivator. Why is that?"

Now if anyone had a solution to that wouldn't that make for a great day...