Posted on 08/21/2008 5:26:15 PM PDT by mngran2
Next year, the state will add a $25 insurance fee for being overweight
Alabama, pushed to third 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I thank God the doctors were able to keep my wonderful father around. :-)
Brave men and women in the armed forces already get veteran health benefits don’t they?
It’s understood that their career places them in harms way to protect the rest of us. There is a legitimate public need in providing them with free quality health care paid for by the taxpayers they protect.
Am I missing something?
Great! It’s been nice doing business with you.
Now if only Congress ran this smoothly.
Great! It’s been nice doing business with you.
Now if only Congress ran this smoothly.
If there was something wrong with my heart, I would have passed out from 150 sit ups, 130 push ups, shuttle sprints and then the 400 round house kicks, 400 axe kicks and 400 snap kicks at my typical Tae Kwon Do workout 3 times a week.
I knew there was a reason why I thought I should be extra nice to you. :-)
Lots of things - but I am not going to spell it out tonight.
Briefly, it comes down to “risk pools”. People should be allowed to join the risk pool they favor, and not forced to join ones that they do not.
For example, Social Security is a plan I would never have joined, given a chioce.
Ditto Medicaide.
All of the “Government” attempts to control behavior, are attempts to contol risk.
Helmet laws, non-smoking laws, you name it.
So, until we dump the idea of forced shared risk, the government will increasingly try to micromanage risk-taking behavior.
So long, free and open society. Must have been nice, when it existed.
You know, I joke with my friend at the school. We spend 45 minutes doing cardio, push ups, sit ups, squat thrusts and stretching, and then only 20 minutes of actual martial arts.
If a mugger attacked me I wouldn’t necessarily be able to kick his ass and knock the knife out of his hand...but I would challenge him to a sit up contest for my wallet. He’d be toast :-)
I was actually curious to hear your take on veteran medical benefits.
Everyone agrees and understands that the shared risk pool theory (Gubmint programs like Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, indigent insurance charity care) leads to coercion to change behaviors in the absence of a free market to charge more to higher risk folks.
“I was actually curious to hear your take on veteran medical benefits.”
They suck.
You don’t sound like you are in the mood to explain, but I would like to hear it and others I’m sure would too.
There are two reasons why health care costs are going up: (1) people are living longer and therefore need more medical care, and (2) costs of medical advancement in prescriptions and medical equipment. If everyone lived perfectly, the cost of medical care would not decrease. People like scapegoats.
Yep, never bring a sword to a gun fight!
Hollywood has even managed to emasculate Indiana Jones in the name of PC. He went from a cigar smoking tough guy to a whatever in the recent movie. Not surprised.
They did it to James Bond. It hasn’t been the same since Sean Connery.
All part of the lib attempt to pussify American boys into quiche eating, art loving pacifists.
Now that’s one group I would not mind paying more for at all — our wonderful vets — and we have a duty to do so. God bless them.
a hazardous job and hazardous life style are night and day....
in fact if you work in a hazardous line of duty you will pay more for disability insurance versus one who has an office job...
True.
But a lot of liberal activists make a lot of money trying to convince gullible state legislators that if they ban smoking and trans fats, they can save their helpless soon to be broke state Medicaid system.
They’re reaching for straws and the charlatans are more than happy to cash in on their stupidity.
Indeed. The correct solution is to get them off of government run health care plans and into the private sector. Everyone should pay something.
Oh, and individuals who participate in “extreme” sports — they should pay more, don’t you think?
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