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Hefty Penalties: Charging Employees for Being Overweight?

August 22, 2008 It doesn’t make any sense, no matter how you look at it.  Alabama wants to charge employees for bad health habits, and is going to start penalizing obese people come 2010.  The state already charges employees who smoke an additional $25 per month.  It’s hard to  know where to even begin dissecting this mess.

First of all, not all obese people are taxing the insurance system and raising premiums across the board.  So to charge them as a group is as inequitable and illogical as it is to charge the thin and/or healthy people.  Secondly, if people want to mess up their bodies, that is their right to do so.  They are the ones who ultimately pay the price in basic wellness.  But that is not what is causing the problem. It is the financial price of healthcare being incurred by all people that has led to such an archaic and ridiculous approach.  If it weren’t for the greed systemically embedded in the insurance companies, this would not be an issue between individual citizens, state government and corporate America.  It’s the system itself that is the unhealthiest thing of all, and the people responsible are the ones who should be charged to cover the costs of the debacle they made.

Posted by Donna Flagg on August 22, 2008 | Comments (3)