http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?sid=1283658&nid=22
November 1, 2007 - 6:45am
A growing number of American companies, worried about the growing
waistlines of their employees and the impact on health care costs, are
considering either a carrot or stick approach to slim their workforce.
Earlier this year an Indiana hospital chain announced plans to dock workers
paychecks if they continued to smoke and/or didn't adopt healthy lifestyles
that would reduce their blood pressure and/or cut their cholesterol levels.
The proposal was to fine workers $5 per paycheck if they smoked and to trim
$10 from each paycheck if they were overweight and didn't take steps to
slim down. Naturally it caused a firestorm of complaints.
A larger firm decided on a positive approach. It promised extra dollars to
employees whose children got into physical fitness programs. Many companies
(including Uncle Sam) now help employees with the cost of quit-smoking
programs.
Some years back, the director of an important federal agency (its initials
rhyme with O-P-M) got into a heap of trouble, and almost lost her job, for
encouraging staffers to lose weight. Her motives, aides said, were pure.
They said she was shocked and worried by the physical stature of some of
her staffers.
Health insurance premiums everywhere are going up. Many private firms have
either cut back or dropped health insurance programs because of their high
costs. Premiums in the nation's largest group plan, the Federal Employee
Health Benefits Program, are going up next year. But not nearly as fast,
thanks to the use of FEHBP reserves, as health plan premiums in the private
sector.
Many scientists link smoking and obesity with heart disease, cancer, and
diabetes. Some say the latter disease has reached near epidemic
proportions. Or soon will.
So what, if anything, should the government do? It has one of the nation's
largest workforces and each employee (and retiree) is eligible for lifetime
health care coverage. Because it's a group program, people in the same
plans pay the same premiums whether they are 25 year old marathoners or 100
year old retirees with all the aches, pains and problems associated with
old age.
A married couple without children pays the same for family plan coverage as
a couple with 10 kids. Workers with healthy lifestyles (and good genes) pay
the same premiums as very unhealthy workers and retirees in their same
plans.
So what role, if any, does the employer, especially yours, have in policing
the health of workers? Should there be a carrot-like incentive (maybe extra
pay or bonuses) for those with healthy lifestyles? Or should Uncle Sam
wield the stick and whack the wallets and purses of those without healthy
lifestyles.
The issue raises a lot of questions and, for many, sets off a lot of alarm
bells. The only sure winners so far in the private sector are lawyers hired
to defend or attack enforced lifestyle rules.