Opinion: Fat tax to pay for healthcare reform?

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It’s already happened in North Carolina, where lawmakers have decreed that starting next year, state employees who smoke will pay more for health insurance. Ditto state employees who are still obese by July 2011, defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40.

Could the federal government be far behind?

Today House Democrats are meeting in their closed-door caucus to talk about what Washington euphemistically calls ‘revenue streams’ for funding the healthcare reform. President Obama has said he will not sign a bill increasing revenue, sending lawmakers scrambling to find a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.

Already, lawmakers have looked at taxing insurance companies for so-called ‘Cadillac’ plans, but labor unions object. And they’ve looked at a so-called ‘botox’ tax on plastic surgery, and a tax on Americans earning more than $500,000 a year or couples earning more than $1 million.

All of this was brilliantly explained by our colleague Janet Hook in a recent article asking, ‘Whose taxes will go up?’

But she didn’t mention the prospect of a fat tax.

-- Johanna Neuman

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