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+--- Thread: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! (/showthread.php?tid=125570)
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Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - cbelt3 - 10-19-2011
http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2011/10/clinic_employees_get_healthier.html
"CLEVELAND, Ohio — Starting four years ago, the Cleveland Clinic stopped hiring smokers, launched a healthy-food initiative and removed sugared beverages from its campuses. "
My own company has been doing a lot along this line as well, but not to the extent of offering an exercise facility. Americans may have pooh-poohed the idea of exercise before work and so forth that seemed a feature of Japanese culture in the 1980's, but it does work.
I personally walk one or two miles at lunch, depending on my schedule. Outside in good weather, inside in the factory when it's bad weather.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - Lux Interior - 10-19-2011
Is it legal to discriminate based on smoking/nonsmoking status?
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - Spock - 10-19-2011
Lux Interior wrote:
Is it legal to discriminate based on smoking/nonsmoking status?
If it isn't, it should be.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - beagledave - 10-19-2011
Lux Interior wrote:
Is it legal to discriminate based on smoking/nonsmoking status?
It's legal to "discriminate" except for protected classes.
Smoking isn't a protected class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - J Marston - 10-19-2011
The traditional model of health care--repair health problems after they have happened--is too expensive. Prevention is much cheaper. It has long been known that poor countries cannot afford to build a physician-based infrastructure in the foreseeable future; but they can make dramatic improvements in public health. Those techniques are now being applied to countries that can or already have physician-based infrastructure but which have also found savings by adopting preventative measures.
The biggest killers of the twentieth century--TB (especially), cholera, typhoid, typhus, malaria--were banished long before effective treatments were created, largely by eliminating the worst of the urban slums and rural swamps. Heart disease and diabetes can be addressed in similar ways by changes in diet and exercise, although, since both have a metabolic component, it may be possible only to delay rather than deny them. Cancer is more problematic since many cancers are idiopathic.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - the_poochies - 10-19-2011
J Marston wrote:
The traditional model of health care--repair health problems after they have happened--is too expensive. Prevention is much cheaper.
Unfortunately, the US health insurance industry is very slow to recognize this. If I eat junk food and spend all day in front of the TV, my insurance premiums are the same as my healthy coworker who exercises and eats well.
Of course, if the first employee gets rushed to the hospital with a heart attack, he gets his expensive coverage paid for by his health insurer.
Health insurance should be billed like auto insurance: people with unhealthy lifestyles should pay more just like lousy drivers pay more.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - J Marston - 10-19-2011
the_poochies wrote:In general I agree, although implementation is very complex.
Health insurance should be billed like auto insurance: people with unhealthy lifestyles should pay more just like lousy drivers pay more.
Car insurance doesn't really check for lousy drivers, just for those who get into accidents or get tickets, so it can make decisions based on objective criteria rather than actually monitoring driving (which would requite a massive invasion of privacy). Health insurance is moving in this direction: a 61-year old who had a heart attack was required to do three months of cardio rehab as a condition of keeping his insurance.
Beyond very crude measures like that, it's difficult to see how insurance companies wouldn't trample on privacy rights. For instance, it's known that women who do not stray more than about 4 lbs. from their ideal weight at age 18 have lower (and often much lower) rates of breast cancer. Can an insurance company require annual weigh-ins?
Further, some very serious health problems, including Type I diabetes, some cancers, elements of heart disease, have genetic components. Should those people be required to pay a surcharge?
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - Michael - 10-19-2011
One of my students told me yesterday that her health insurance now has an increased premium for the obese. They measure it with BMI (greater than 30) or with body fat measures (I don't know what percentage they use). I think this is a good idea.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - Acer - 10-19-2011
I think it's prudent for an insurance company to encourage healthy living. But weighting premiums based on health profile too heavily can have a negative effect. Unhealthy people end up with jacked up premiums and next thing you know they no longer can afford insurance at all, making them even unhealthier.
Remember how insurance is supposed to work: we all pay in, even if we don't use it, so that in the end the costs are averaged for all.
Re: Cleveland Employer stops Healthcare cost skyrocketing... by making employees healthier ! - Acer - 10-19-2011
My wife's company uses the carrot rather than the stick: participate in a series of healthy living steps, like get screenings, a check-up or join a gym; to get your deductible reduced.