I hate this. I work for an institution that makes it “optional” to submit to a physical that looks at a variety of factors such as weight, blood sugar, BMI, health habits involving eating and smoking, etc.
If you submit, you get $500 off your insurance plan.
That is all fine and dandy, and completely an independent observation from the concept of what is being done with the information.
But having observed human behavior, it is inevitable that at some point, the “discount” (having $500 lopped off for participating) is going to turn into a penalty (having $500 added on for NOT participating)
To my wife’s irritation, I refused to accept going through the “physical” to get the $500 off. They can do what they like, I was just not going to submit to it and legitimize the activity.
My wife loves me, but we don’t see eye to eye philosophically on this, and she was not pleased when the deadline passed.
Are you saying they'll hike everyone's cost by $500? Because in and of itself, whether the difference of $500 is called a "discount" for one group or a "penalty" for the other matters not a lick. (Kinda like the claim that my employer pays half my Social Security tax ... they pay out money, some comes to me and the rest to the SSA, whether they say it's all paid by me or all paid by the employer or any point in between.)