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.
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?