Newsbyte: Higher Premiums for Obesity, Smoking
In the past, employers have offered various weight loss, diet and nutrition, and smoking cessation classes, but the programs have done little to ameliorate poor health practices – and they’ve failed to pull in a crowd. Now, along with the free programs, many employers are tacking on much higher premiums for unhealthy employees.
While the programs will remain voluntary, employees will likely find that utilizing them will be beneficial in the long run. From lowered premiums to employer bonuses to HSAs, the financial rewards for taking advantage of the programs are likely to be a big push for employees. For example, Union Pacific employees can currently receive up to $300 in employer contributions to their HSAs if they complete a provided health assessment, don’t use tobacco, and go in for an annual physical.
According to Reuters almost 40 percent of employers will begin hiking premiums for unhealthy employees in 2012, more than doubling the 19 percent of employers using the penalty strategy this year.
Posted on Monday, October 31st, 2011 at 12:50 am. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below. Your comments will appear immediately, but the author reserves the right to delete innapropriate comments.