[Osborn F Enready]

treme said: From what I've read, you're a libertarian right?

In most scenarios, and for most puposes, yes.

treme said: Then wouldn't you consider this to be the person's choice to work at the company even after being asked to lose weight?

Yes, I would. But, also as a Libertarian, I am concerned with monopoly of the market by corporations, as opposed to small businesses and individuals.

treme said: If this country had a libertarian government wouldn't you applaud a company for creating these kinds of business contracts with it's employees?

I would applaud responsible companies, but not all companies that offer health care are doing it for their employees beneficience, but for their own.

For example, if your company employs 5000 people, and 4500 of those people are over 50, while 500 of them are under 25, do you think the 500 are going to get reasonable health insurance rates when lumped in with all the higher, more risky and therefore more costly over 50 years olds? No, they wont.

I worked at a small business that was unionized, our company employed 16 people including management and office personnel and laborers. All of our rates were grossly exaggerated because we had one employee who has several health problems. The effect? All of us had to pay more for health insurance for less coverage, except the person warranting the extra costs, who paid the same amount we all paid. Right now, the health burden is on older employees, which make up the bulk of management and office positions, so laborers (who are paid less)are being forced to pay more to insure office personnell that incur more costs (but make much more than the laborers).

Its counter productive to laborers for their company to insure them, in most cases, I would argue, not to mention it allows corporations to monopolize the market, thereby, the bulk of market choices and pricing.

treme said: If they don't like it, they can find employment elsewhere and if this stipulation was too much to take, the company would have to change or go out of business.

It would only work in that manner, if corporations didn't monopolize the market, meaning, if you left your current job, you would have more options at the next job, which is not the case in corporate America which exists in almost all intermediate to large cities in this country.

treme said: If one considers the loss of a loss of thirty dollars or, a gain of thirty dollars a reward, would this then be ok?

I don't think so, since it still falsely monopolizes the market through corporate controlled buying power.

treme said: Just because this isn't something you'd do doesn't make it wrong for them to. Let them be libertarian. Let them do it the way they want to and let them fail if that's their ultimate fate.

I wouldn't mind this if the failure of this trend wouldn't mean the failure of the entire healthcare system in America, due to corporate monopoly of the market.