Insurance Weight

A while back, I wrote an article about the airline industry potentially charging customers based upon their weight. The idea I ran across actually came from a person who used to work at Yahoo and posted a comment about the possibility on his personal blog. Today, I ran across another similar weight based cost issue. An article on FOXNews reported that Alabama is going to start charging its state employees $25 extra per month for their health insurance if they have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 35 or greater. BMI is a widely used measurement to determine the appropriate weight compared to an individual’s height. It does have its shortcomings as it does not take into account muscle tone among other things. It is strictly a height to weight ratio determined by extensive statistical analysis.

As I mentioned in the airline weight charge article, critics equate the program (which Alabama proposes to institute beginning in 2010) to being a “fat tax.” When getting down to the nuts and bolts of the issue, it is just that. Charging a fee based upon a simple height and weight ratio cannot be called anything else. The kettle is black on this one. Proponents of the program have statistical data showing that it does in fact cost extra to provide health care coverage for those in the obese category and above as determined by BMI. The charges are meant to offset these costs and provide an incentive to eat healthier and potentially lose weight to save the individual and state money.

Alabama already charges state employees who smoke an extra $25 per month for health insurance. Everyone knows the risks of smoking elevate health care costs and Alabama has chosen to reclaim a portion of the costs via a monthly charge. They are going to apply the same theory to their overweight employees. Of course, there is great opposition to the proposal. People do not like to pay for their own impact on society and believe their rights are being infringed upon when asked to pay for certain things. Eating and smoking are two of them. Eating is both a right and a need. We need to eat, but we do not need to eat 5,000-10,000 calories per day. If we choose to eat more than is “normal,” then why is it wrong to pay the price of our excessive use of the luxury of eating more than we should?

Smoking is a different story in my book. Smoking is not a need and is only a luxury. However, smoking is much different than eating too much. Smoking affects everyone around you via secondhand smoke. Through the years, scientific data has shown secondhand smoke to be very dangerous and maybe more so than smoking itself. Paying a “tax” to smoke should be a higher penalty because not only are smoking workers harming themselves, but they are penalizing everyone around them. Designated smoking areas are helpful, but they do not “cure” the issue smokers bring to the workforce.

I believe that utilizing the BMI as the deciding factor in Alabama’s proposition leaves a little to be desired as it is just an average or “guesstimate.” But, we need to start somewhere. Our country has become one of the most overweight countries in history and eventually, we will pay the consequences of it. Not only by having poor health issues and potentially earlier death, but our health care industry costs will continue to skyrocket and society as a whole will have to foot the bill. Insurance has always been an issue with many families and individuals within our country and if we cannot stop the increased “demand” for health care services, the costs for an average healthy person will become largely unaffordable.

We are already seeing this in our country today. Corporations are dropping health insurance as an employee benefit and those who are keeping it are largely passing the costs along to the employees. Health care costs have risen to heights where we have millions of people without health care coverage. I think it is well within the rights of our employers to ask us to pay a fee based upon our impact on society. We are not forced to eat too much. We are not forced to smoke. We are not being forced to do harmful things to our body. However, if we are in effect “taxing” those around us who choose not to smoke or eat too much, why should we not pay the “tax” ourselves?

I’m not some skinny guy writing this article. I just believe that we should all pay our fair share of the costs and especially when we are part of the problem. Is it a “fat tax?” Sure. Is it wrong? No. People need to be responsible for their own actions and $25 per month is well within the limits of fair.

Citation: http://www.foxnews.com/