Alabama Plans to Tax Fat Employees to Recoup Insurance Costs

[Taem]

I think we can hold people responsible for their lifestyle with small negative incentives but should make sure that facts you can't influence are not taking into account (although a true market economy insurer in a country with no government regulation could if it wants only insure people with small risks).
Less regulation of insurers will for sure lead to far worse examples of differences in payment for an insurance policy depending on your health situation.

Individuals or the free market? Facts you can influence?

In New York and recently in California they passed a law making Trans-Fat illegal in the restaurant industry. I'm sure this had a negative, if not devastating effect on more than one type of cooking-oil producer. While it does not directly effect my business - we already used zero-trans-fat cooking oils - here you have an example of government "holding businesses responsible", whole corporations instead of the individual. I'd say this possibly had an influential effect on some cooking oil-makers.

Also in California, and more specifically in Santa Barbara county, there is a number of smoking laws targeting the business owner. The state runs anti-smoking ads here and has banned most type of smoking commercials. Does this count as influencing the free-market? I have no doubt cigarette sales are down because of this influential trend.

Secondhand Smoke

* Enacted in 1995, the statewide workplace law (AB 13) changed clean indoor air laws in California.
* AB 13 mandates that almost all enclosed places of employment in the state of California are to be smoke-free.
* In 1997, an amendment (AB 3037) also made bars, bingo parlors, and gaming clubs smoke-free.
* State law prohibits the smoking of any tobacco product within 25 feet of a playground or tot lot sandbox area, and also prohibits the disposal of tobacco-related waste in these areas.
* State law (AB 846) also prohibits smoking within 20 feet of main entrances and exits at all government buildings, including community colleges and state universities.
o Locally, both Allan Hancock Community College and Santa Barbara City College have designated a limited number of spaces where smoking is allowed on campus.
* Some local communities in Santa Barbara have stricter laws that regulate smoking. These include: the unincorporated areas of Santa Barbara County, and the cities of Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Buellton.
o For example, 75% of the outdoor seating areas in restaurants in the county areas and the cities of Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Buellton are to be smoke-free.
o Local laws in Santa Barbara County and in the City of Goleta prohibit smoking within 20 feet of any building or area where smoking is prohibited. Ashtrays are also banned within a 20-foot smoke-free area.
o The City of Carpinteria banned smoking at all of its parks and beaches in 1994.

In the case of trans-fat, smoking, and even obesity, health is obviously the issue at hand. As consumers, we have the right to put in our bodies what we want (for the most part), so those laws above aim to protect the individual by targeting the problem/distributers of an unhealthy lifestyle. We don't always know what's in our food, so the state has taken to liberty to make something that could potentially harm us (trans-fat) illegal, or to protect us (smoking) from it, but the blame falls on the business, not the individual. I guess before we continue with this line of thought, this really begs the question: so what is the cause of obesity? Is it eating unhealthy? Lack of exercise? Diabetes? Because if the cause is 90% food, 10% other, then why not add an extra tax too all food deemed unhealthy by the state? Then not only do you protect and serve your city-workers, but the entire populace of the state. If the issue is 10% food, 90% exercise, then why not mandate bi-daily jogs for city-workers, or even start a state-wide city to city jog-a-thon to raise awareness of an unhealthy lifestyle? Tell me, how does taxing the individual in a select group of workers who happen to have a bad BMI score solve anything?