The Road to Better Health as Described by Big Companies

In the United States, 7 out of 10 adults are considered overweight and 1/3 are obese, so it in no surprise that companies want their employees to be healthier in order to cut down on health insurance costs. Under Obamacare, businesses with more than 50 employees are required to offer affordable healthcare to any fulltime employee. Recently, there has been a trend towards penalizing those employees who are in poor health. These penalties include withholding certain company sponsored healthcare insurance programs from employees who exhibit certain risk factors. And although under federal anti-discrimination regulations, those individuals who have certain medical conditions can get a doctor’s note allowing them to get any incentives and avoid any penalties with out participating in health programs and despite having risk factors this is not stopping some large companies from taking their employee’s biometric measurements. Biometric measurements include waist size, blood pressure, glucose levels, and cholesterol levels.

Although offering incentives for good health is nothing new, penalizing those with what is considered to be bad health is. Companies like JetBlue Airways offer their employees $500 annually if they submit weekly blood pressure and waist measurements with shown improvements towards becoming healthier. However, companies like Lafarge US have voluntary health screening that offers both a reward for those who participate and a punishment for those who do not. Employees who participate in the initial health screening receive a $75 gift card and those who are active in the healthcare coaching have access to the company’s gold level health insurance that has no deductable and lower out of pocket expenses. Employees who choose not to submit to the healthcare coaching and those employees who exhibit 3 risk factors even if they do participate in the program are denied the gold level insurance and are instead offered a plan with a $2750 deductible.

One Rand Study found that 10% of employees nationwide participated in company sponsored weight loss programs and 21% participated in fitness programs. However, most of the time the only thing these employees had to show for their efforts was better health as only 2% of employees reported any actual savings on their healthcare. What is known is employees do respond better to positive reinforcement rather than penalties. 74% of JetBlue’s employees participated in their better health incentives programs while only 19% of employees at Lafarge US participated to their ongoing healthcare coaching. That is not to say that Lafarge’s employees are not interested in better health programs as an astonishing 97% agreed to the initial health screening if only to receive the $75 gift card before dropping out of the program. Maybe fear of penalization is not the best way for companies to strive for better employee over-all health. Only time will tell if companies continue the trend towards penalizing those with bad health and if this tactic improves the over-all health of the nation’s working class.

Luhby Tami. “Employers measure workers’ waistlines” http://money.cnn.com. 17 Oct. 2014.