If your employer paid you to be healthier, would you be healthier?

[LuckyTheDog]

With continuing pressure to control health care costs, more companies plan to offer financial incentives to reward workers who adopt healthy lifestyles, according to a new survey by Watson Wyatt, a consulting firm, and the National Business Group on Health, a non-profit association of 285 large employers.

Forty-six percent of employers surveyed currently offer financial incentives to encourage workers to monitor and improve their health or plan to offer incentives next year. By 2009, that number is expected to surpass 70 percent, according to the survey. A total of 355 large employers participated.

http://www.meltoncareerblog.com/2007/11/sorvey-more-emp.html

[DS1]

1. yep

[mitchum]

2. No, but If my employer paid me to be happier, I certainly would be happier

[mike_c]

3. frankly, I would prefer other incentives...

...like a workplace culture that strongly valued healthy lifestyles and provided time off for exercise, access to healthy foods at work, and so on.

[rwheeler31]

4. Will we give up all our freedom ?

[MannyGoldstein]

5. If They Paid Me More, I Could Eat More, And Get Fatter...

and then I'd live longer!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/health/07fat.html?em&ex=1194584400&en=4c49e714162e555e&ei=5087%0A

Bring on the foie gras, boys!

[supernova]

6. I prefer universal healthcare

I want employers out of the healthcare business.

They have absolutely no business snooping around my medical records and providing healthcare is a good guise under which they can do that.

[jody]

8. Under universal healthcare, couldn't people with a healthy lifestyles be charged lower prices? n/t

[supernova]

10. No, universal healthcare

means we all pay into the system.

If you're going to charge lower prices for healthier people.... it's the same as saying sicker people must pay more.

*sigh*

The point of universal healthcare is to get rid of the notion that people are punished for being sick.

[jody]

18. But government sponsored home insurance programs charge more to people who build in high risk areas

Why should home owners or people with healthy life styles pay more for home owner's insurance and health care insurance than people who make decisions to reduce risk?

[supernova]

21. Because you can choose where to build a home

you cannot choose whether or not to get sick.

As someone else mentions below, you can do everything exactly right: have the perfect diet, the perfect exercise plan and weight managmenet.... stay away from all addictive behaviours, ....

AND STILL DEVELOP ILLNESS.... SOMETIMES TERMINAL ILLNESS FOR NO FUCKING REASON WHATSOEVER.


If you don't understand that basic principle, you are either:

a) Too fucking young

b) Too fucking deluded

[jody]

24. But people can choose a lifestyle that reduces health risk. "If you don't understand that basic

principle, you are either:

a) Too fucking young

b) Too fucking deluded "

:evilgrin:

[supernova]

25. But you can't remove risk completely

that's what I'm trying to tell you.

Let's suppose it's possible to remove every conceivable risk and live in a completely hermetically sealed environment.

You would still be at risk for a lot of illnesses.


That's what you fail to understand.

[jody]

26. Who said anything about removing risk 100%? We are talking about government taxing people who make

decisions that reduce their risk and using that money to subsidize people who make decisions that increase their risk.

If the source of risk is not a person's choice, then I support insurance paid for from a common pool.

If however, the source of risk is a person's choice, then IMO the person should bear the cost of insurance.

[supernova]

27. That doesn't work

That's still, STILL the model that blames people for being, basically HUMAN BEINGS.

If we are to have universal healthcare, you have to accept the principle that some people will behave in irrational ways.

I will accept a pricing model based on wealth; I will not accept a model based on illness.

[jody]

29. I see we disagree and that's often the case in our Dem party. n/a

[Warpy]

12. No. Fitness Nazis would be charged the same as everybody else

Illness is NOT a consumer decision and never will be.

No matter how perfectly you think you are living your life, you WILL become sick at some point. You can hurry the process along if you have a lousy diet, smoke, drink and/or do a lot of drugs. You can't stop it.

Illness is a fact of life. It will hit us all at some point. Universal single payer means just that, that care will be there for us when it happens.

After all, the people who nagged me to go out running with them in the 70s are now having knee replacements. My arthritis is painful, but my knees are still holding up.

[supernova]

15. Yes, exactly Warpy

It's amazng how many self righteous "healthy" people there are.

I say "healthy" because no one ever knows what will go wrong in their life.

[jody]

19. See #18 above. n/t

[blondeatlast]

28. Yes, and smarter kid's parents should pay less in property taxes for public schools. Brick housed

people should pay less for fire services. People who don't use the library should pay less taxes than those who do.

Just in case you really don't get it... :sarcasm:

[jody]

31. Your post implies you support your taxes paying for *'s war in Iraq and that's not sarcastic. n/t

[blondeatlast]

32. WTF? My post says you don't have a choice on some things.

Apparently you are too obtuse to get it--maybe your parents should have paid more in school taxes, hmm?

You've lost your argument above, give it a rest.

[jody]

33. But people do have a choice on healthy life style. Are you unable to grasp that simple fact? n/t

[blondeatlast]

35. Well, I've had insulin dependent diabetes since childhood, yet I'm probably healthier than most

Americans. I don't mind sucking it up a little for others. Living a healthy lifestyle is it's own reward, really.
As one who has come up from near death a couple of years ago to where I am now, I've seen the reward.

And quite frankly, I want ubiversal single payer healthcare, just as I support public schools. What's good for the least of us is good for the most fortunate, IMHO. FWIW, financially, I'm very fortunate. I don't mind sharing a little of my good fortune.

[jody]

37. I also believe in sharing the bounty nature and circumstance has given me but I object to my money

via taxes being used to subsidize lifestyles of others that involve high risk activities undertaken by personal choice.

[madrchsod]

9. yes i will agree with that....

[Dora]

7. Paid how? Time or money?

More money wouldn't make a difference.


Time, on the other hand....

[Warpy]

11. I have a chronic illness so it's not really under my control

but it would have been a huge help if my last 3 employers had not refused to hire me on staff so I could have had health insurance in order to take care of it a little better.

Employers will do more for us if they push for single payer, universal health insurance.

[dweller]

13. If your employer paid you

stop right there.

that would be ideal. If my employer paid me, on time.

hell, i'd be happy.

dp

[TahitiNut]

14. So, there's some 'perfect' lifestyle that employers pay the most ...

... and then EVERYONE that doesn't conform to that 'standard' gets penalized?? No thank you.

What's next?? Pay people an "incentive" to be wealthy?

Here's a fucking newsflash: The "incentive" for good health is exactly that! Good health!

If there's a need for financial support, it's in health care and access to recreational and exercise facilities. How about country clubs for the working poor? I'd love to be able to afford a membership to some club that has a swimming pool where I could swim laps year-round.

This is the latest brain-fart from the "blame the victim" crowd.

One of the ass-wipe Presidunce candidates was on the radio a few days ago talking about a Health Care Plan where healtny people got "(taxpayer) incentives" for being healthy!! How fucking CLUELESS can these turds get?!?!??

[NorthernSpy]

39. the lowest mortality risk belongs to an overweight, but small-waisted woman who doesn't bike, or...

... engage in any other potentially dangerous physical activity.


In other words, not a health nazi.


This much is clear: when people talk about living a "healthy" lifestyle, they're primarily talking about a feeling they get. They're not looking at mortality stats and deciding to adopt the "least risky" BMI (which would put them in the "overweight" range), or live the "least risky" lifestyle (which would cut out a lot of fun and exciting activities).


If these people were forced to do the things that actually lowered their risk of premature debility or death, they'd freak. Their perceived quality of life might well nosedive, even as their statistical mortality risk declined as well.



So why are they willing to impose intrusive and misery-creating "health" regimens on others, when they aren't willing to live a statistically-sound lifestyle themselves?

[Alcibiades]

16. It's always the fault of the sick

for being sick. All diseases are behavioral. Doesn't everyone know that?

:sarcasm:

You can do every damn thing right, not smoke, eat organic, low-fat, exercise, and still get a horrible, completely unpredictable disease and die young. You can do everything wrong and die of old age.

This idea that we can completely control our health through technical means and discipline is a modern bourgeois conceit. That being said, if you really take your health seriously, sell your car and walk everywhere. You'll save money and get great exercise.

[supernova]

17. That Melton Career Blog you quoted

is way behind the times.

He's documenting something that is kind of a last gasp of old school capitalism where employees got everything from their employers, including healthcare.

Employers providing useful healthcare services at reasonable prices?

How quaint.

It's not a matter of if, buy when we convert to universal healthcare.

Businessess can no longer absorb the cost, we need it. Period. The "waste" in the system isn't patients picking up the phone and making an appt.

[seabeyond]

20. thats about stupid. i smoke (unhealthy one) i have used insurance only to have one baby

and dont use healthcare for anything else because i am assuming, i am healthy since i am never sick. yet a person that does all the list of a healthy lifestyle may have any number of ailments using healthcare and be rewarded.

[Xenotime]

22. Hell no. It's my money.

[stirlingsliver]

23. If My Employes Offered Me Money...

If my employer offered me money, I would take it.

I'm not sure I'd change my diet or exercise though.

Let them give me the money. I'll decide for myself how I live.

[SyntaxError]

30. Sure...

I workout anyways, so why the hell not get paid for it too? :P

[WinkyDink]

34. If I paid him to be smarter, would he be smarter? How about more humane?

[blondeatlast]

36. Excellent point.

:applause:

[bbgrunt]

38. ...Just one more chain around your neck and a perfect

way to discriminate against those who have medical problems. This is a disaster. At this point the idea of universal health care seems to be appealing until you realize that if government is controlled by corporations, this kind of discrimination can easily become policy enforced by fiat. Soylent green, anyone?

[Silver Swan]

40. I believe

That the behavior that leads to most health problems is simply growing older.

Pay people to die young and you have it solved.

And I don't doubt that this idea would gain support in some circles.

[distantearlywarning]

41. Define "healthier". Also define "paid".

I bet a lot of companies will define healthier simply as "lost weight", which may or may not happen for me regardless of what I do. Actually, I take that back. Make that "probably won't happen".

Now, if they will pay me to keep my BP, cholesterol and blood sugars in a healthy range, that I would be more likely to work on if I had incentive to do so. But then again, I'm already pretty good on all three of those things on a regular basis.

And how much are we talking about here? For instance, I think an hour's worth of pay for an hour's worth of exercise would be incentive enough for me to make sure that I don't skip my workouts.

[hootinholler]

42. It's not the money, it's the time!

I'm out of the house for 11 hours a day minimum putting in an 8 hour workday.

-Hoot

[Johonny]

43. I'll go with

a yes.