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The Cost of Being Healthy

Check out Get Healthy Or Else! while it is still on the B/W website.  It is the story of one company’s quest to wean or force employees off unhealthy lifestyles. One bicyclist is stunned to find he has a serious heart condition, a smoker is fired before he has the chance to undergo withdrawal therapy. But make no mistake this is going to be the new hot issue.  As the comptroller for a local government, I was privy to all the health care costs. With about 450 employees, every year there were about 20-25 expensive surgeries.  It didn’t take a medical scientist to see that if you could dump the unhealthy ones, the cost of the health plan would decrease dramatically.  Read the article before you comment, as the CEO says, we consulted law firms about what we can and cannot do. But as he also says, why should we subsidize destructive behavior like smoking?

Get_healthy I noted in one class that the new EDS facility in Plano sports a luxurious health club.  But the subject of the article has gone way beyond why don’t you work out at lunch to demanding lifestyle changes.  While there is no question about the danger of smoking, how much extra weight is too much.  Gee I wish I could lose ten pounds, and  no doubt a 24/7 rabbit food diet would get me there.  Should my employer demand I do that?

Okay gang, sound off, what say you?  Clearly health care costs are on everyone’s agenda from GM Ford on down.  And before you answer, please understand that if you are in the same plan as the 30 year old on the cover of the magazine, when he eventually gets clogged arteries and goes in for a stent, your higher premiums are paying for his lifestyle.

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2 responses to “The Cost of Being Healthy”

  1. Kimi Pope Avatar
    Kimi Pope

    I personally witnessed rising health care costs in my last job. When I first started in 2000 the health insurance was great; extremely low premiums, 100% coverage and absolutely no co-pay (can you believe it!). As the years went on, the premiums got higher, the coverage dropped to 70-80%, and the co-pays increased to $20. From what I hear now, the latter is still great insurance, but is no where near as great 7 years ago. I think the companies have every right to protect their costs and get rid of unhealthy workers. I also believe that if we as employees had exercised more discernment with our healthcare our costs would not have risen as it has. Going to the doctor at the first sign of illness instead of using over the counter remedies, or using the doctor’s excuse as a day off from work has given employers reason to not take the burden of employee’s healthcare. We are in a right to work state and there is no guarantee to one’s job. I read in one of my mgmt classes that one of the highest costs of employers is workers calling in sick (probably below theft, but up there regardless). Smokers tend to be sick more often than non-smokers and health care costs for a smoker are usually pretty high especially long term smokers. You have to put yourself in the shoes of management, and ask yourself if you would do the same. In corporations, management has and should look out for stockholders best interest and cutting costs anyway possible must be done.

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    Good points all Kim! Now here is a tougher nut to crack. I have read that a huge percent of the money spent on health care is spent the last two years of a person’s life in what is, however well intended, eventually a losing effort. Okay, do we apply a cost benefit analysis and tell a few folks to get their affairs together?
    Bio ethics is an expanding field, one can easily see why.

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