Employers experiment with tough get-healthy regimes

[flashl]

Workers, employers clashing over tough wellness programs

Executives at an Indianapolis health-care system, frustrated by rising benefit costs, proposed a new program to get employees fired up about staying healthy.

Rather than offering incentives, Clarian Health Partners would fine employees who didn't try to quit smoking or lower their cholesterol or blood pressure. The threat of hiking their medical premiums by as much as $30 per paycheck surely would get their attention, executives reasoned.

They were right, but the proposal also generated so much resentment that Clarian Health never rolled out the program.

...

The conflicts playing out as employers try to contain skyrocketing medical costs mirror tensions in society's views about privacy, personal responsibility and shared risk. They reflect growing intolerance for smokers and the obese. And they signal an erosion of a belief that once stood at the bedrock of employer health plans: costs ought to be shared equally regardless of health history or habits.

...

The trend raises a host of legal and ethical questions that will not be settled quickly, lawyers and workplace experts agree.

Chicago Tribuine

Wonder how long work hours and stressful workplace environments is being evaluated?

[groovedaddy]

1. The place I work recently banned smoking on their property

They used to let employees go to a covered porch in the back of the building. Since the ban has been in effect, smokers now go to the public sidewalk on the main drag to smoke IN FRONT OF THE BUSINESS! Maybe it will make some of them quit, but it sure looks bad having all those smokers loitering on the sidewalk in front of the business.
On a brighter note, kentucky is considering a 70 cent a pack tax increase on cigarettes. I'm all for it!

[varkam]

2. I'm a smoker and...

I'm also for KY's increase in taxes on ciggys. We're cutting education by 12% (and incidentally, we're throwing more money at corrections - kinda shows you where our priorities are) - so additional revenue that could be brought in via a tax increase on tobacco would be welcome.

There is a problem, though. The problem is that smokers tend to be the poorest and least educated among the population - so the tax will essentially amount to an additional burden on an already burdened segment of the population. Also, if the goal is to get people to stop smoking, then you're going to have to find a new source of revenue if people do stop smoking.

Nonetheless I think a tax increase on cigarettes would be a good idea. Maybe it'll give me the kick-in-the-ass that I need to drop the habit!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. Try rolling your own if you can't quit

My husband is a smoker, and discovered European tobacco when we first married, namely because American cigarettes make me physically ill. There aren't chemicals in European tobacco, and it's cheaper than ready rolled. Anyway, about 5 years ago he had a chest x-ray and the tech wouldn't believe that he was a smoker-his lungs were clear. He put it down to having smoked European tobacco for ten years.

Just a thought.

Another thought--legalize hemp. KY farmers could produce it rather than tobacco, it makes great fabric and fiber, and has great potential as biofuel. The taxes on it could go to education. And if you legalized a certain form of hemp often used for smoking, you wouldn't need as much money for corrections.

[varkam]

7. I've tried that

Still didn't work for me. I think I actually prefer the chemicals of American cigarettes, strange as it seems. I'm going to give Chantix a go after I get my law school application done in a few weeks.

And I'm all for legalizing both hemp and marijuana (even though I don't partake). It would save a lot of money, and have the potential to turn a giant revenue for the state if they taxed it appropriately. Unfortunately, I don't think the Law & Order crowd would ever go for it.

[azurnoir]

9. This 2 weeks after your post but

my SO and I tried Chantix recently starting around 02/01 what happened was that I got mean and I do mean, mean at first in thought everything had b#tch or dickhead on the end of it then after another week or so it started to become verbal, mind you this is before I tried to quit.
My SO became emotionally flatlined, not sad, not happy, not anything, a zombie. I stopped taking Chantix first and returned to normal within a day or so-my family was relieved. My SO took it for another week until he realized what was happening to him and stopped he also has "come back" In neither case did it do squat for cigarette cravings, we're both on the patch and doing ok-save your money.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. I asked that the techs not smoke in the office

I've never smoked and ready rolled cigarettes make me ill. The techs ignored me. We re-arranged the office, and I've hidden the ash tray and threatened to report them to the fire marshal if they smoke in here again. They have a whole warehouse/garage in which they are welcome to smoke, btw. No need to go outside at all. So that's the flip side of the coin.

That being said, sometimes it is very difficult to bring down cholesterol or blood pressure, the latter especially if it is a high stress position.

[niyad]

5. the nanny state is alive and well. why is it that employers (and their supporters)

think it is okay to dictate people's private lives?

intolerance for obesity?

WHERE is universal health care?

[MindPilot]

6. Really good point about stress

Workplace-related stress is strong contributor to disease, and anywhere you can find advice on how to "deal" with it, but somehow hiring enough people to do the work and paying them decently never seems to make the list.

[Nay]

8. Funny that these workplaces get all huffy about employees being

out of shape, unhealthy, and costing them money, when half these damn companies are (or are invested in) companies that PRODUCE and/or SELL the shit that makes their employees unhealthy! As usual, they get you both ways! Only in America!

And, as the OP said, these companies don't mind piling on the stress, adding work hours, etc., but those damn employees, they need to just toughen up or something!