The fat tax? Alabama to charge overweight state workers extra for health insurance
by Thor on Aug. 25th, 2008
Coming on the heals of a very successful effort to charge higher health insurance premiums to state worker who smoke (and thus leading them to quit), the state of Alabama is taking things to the next level. It's given state workers notice that they will pay higher insurance rates if they're overweight, don't get a regular check-up and don't show progress in lowering their weight. Read the full details here.
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I think that they should be allowed to charge more, unless there is a health reson for the person's obesity.
I think they should charge you more for your excessive ignorance and arrogance.
The day we allow a prejudicial and tyrannical rule like that, we have lost all our ethics and rules of justice. It is the most unethical and prejudicial rule I have ever heard. I never thought mankind would lower his self to this substandard.
I don't think a fat tax is very practical - there are several things wrong with Pigouvian taxes in general. They are hard to calculate because it is impossible to determine the exact amount of externality caused, in this case by obesity, and they affect different people in different ways!
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