Counterpoint: Why install a wellness program?

• Sixty-four percent of surveyed major employers who already have wellness programs say cutting health care costs was the main factor of installing the wellness program.
• Published reports suggests 70 to 75 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. is used to treat a preventable disease. Preventable illnesses are related to a reasonably standardized and well-researched and accepted set of modifiable health risk factors that include: nutrition, weight control, exercise, cholesterol level, blood pressure, safety, and mental well-being.
• Other information suggests up to 40 percent of employees have at least three health risks. Evidence suggests these employees are absent more often, more likely to receive disability benefits and more prone to arrive at work physically or otherwise impaired.
• Individual behavior drives 50 percent of the health care spending in the U.S. today.
• According to published reports, Chrysler spent $9,200 per active employee last year to provide health care just to the active employee and his or her dependents. What might wellness initiatives have saved?
• It just makes sense to many CEOs/CFOs that they should be able to charge the couch sitting, cupcake guzzling, beer-swilling, chain-smoking, obese and hypertensive employee more for the cost of insuring him than the amount charged to the employee who takes care of his health. They soon find there are limits on how far they can go, but that doesn't stop them from trying -- and in some cases from pushing the envelope (or even crushing the envelope, under the "I'm going to do it until somebody makes me stop" theory).
• Some companies install wellness programs -- and pay for them -- simply because they want their employees to be healthier and happier, for those reasons alone (or at least primarily).

Lockton Benefit Group

Kansas City, Mo.