Should Healthy Employees Pay Less?On the surface the idea of charging healthy workers less for their health insurance and unfit employees, who may be overweight or smokers, more for their medical coverage seems like a pretty reasonable. There are some that disagree. In fact there are those who believe that such ideas, which are being adopted by some companies to reduce the costs for healthcare insurance, are less about personal responsibility than they are about a loss of personal freedom. Health insurance companies love the idea of segmenting subscribers into healthy and unhealthy camps and charging accordingly. In fact one of the biggest carriers, United Healthcare, recently introduced group medical benefit plans where employees can reduce their deductibles without increasing their monthly premium for health insurance if they take company given health tests. The check-ups screen for high blood pressure, cholesterol level, fluctuations in weight and tobacco use. Sounds good. What can be wrong if your boss wants you to quit smoking or knock off a few pounds, especially if you can save money in the process? Let’s look at it a little closer. Some would say that penalizing employees who are less fit by charging them more for health insurance is a kind of discrimination. More distressing to those who oppose such a practice is the slippery slope to invasion of privacy. They fear where the line will be drawn. When will employers have a right to dictate other potentially “risky” behaviors outside of the workplace through the dangled carrot of lower health insurance rates? Will they be able to snoop into your recent sexual activity? Will they be able to place a surcharge on you if you ride a motorcycle or parasail on your vacation or snow ski? Can you be told that if you don’t take a flu shot, spend time sunbathing with less than spf 60 sunscreen, or scuba dive that you are engaged in risky behavior according to medical wisdom and therefore run the risk of paying more for your heath insurance? And if that happens can the specter of genetic screening be not far behind? What about the married couple on a company’s health insurance plan that is told they have a chance of having a baby born with a chronic genetic disorder like sickle cell or downs syndrome, and decide to have the child anyway will they be called “irresponsible” and charged more? If you think it’s unlikely, consider that one company, Clarian Health, a hospital system in Indianapolis, is already going down the punishment route, saying it will be fining employees $10 out of every paycheck for those who screen too high for blood glucose or cholesterol levels. 1 CommentLeave a comment |
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Wow, that was a very thought provoking article! I have very mixed feelings about this, because on the one hand, you can argue that the companies are in their good right to ask their employees to do so. Nobody is forcing them to stay in the job after all. But on the other hand it really leaves a bad taste in my mouth to read about fines and forced tests. I mean, we are not a communist country? I think that going down this road only to get a cheap health insurance rate, will none the less, lead to the employer feeling that their privacy has been invaded. A much better option to keep health costs down is to offer diet and exercise to employees. When I was working for a French company some years back, we actually had a basic gym and showers in our offices that employees could use in their free time or in breaks. They also had a great cantine that served healthy but tasty food. Everyone was happy about that and didn’t mind paying a little extra.
Comment by Carol — June 29, 2009 @ 2:42 am