HRGuru

Human nature, being what it is, it is all about the money and control.

There was a time when employees benefited from having health insurance. It covered doctor visits anytime, anyplace. The doctors made the decisions for the type of treatment the patient needed. Then, enter PPOs, and the HMOs and now most recently the EPOs, all created to save money. It has saved nothing. It simply passed the cost on to the consumer. Today, with all the increased deductibles, the increased out of pocket expenses, the increased cost of the premiums monthly, with separate deductibles for monthly maintenance medications, the consumer is paying approximately $5,000 a year and getting the shaft. The wellness programs are out there to protect the insurance companies, not the consumer. The employers and the insurance companies do not want to cover the cost of employee benefits. They want to know in advance what this person or that person may or may not cost them. Then they can raise the rates and pass them on to the consumer. So, here is this wellness package that costs the company money to include, and folks who are healthy are going to visits, just to get their wellness visits in, because it is now a covered expense. People are people--they are going to eat what they want, smoke what they want, and exercise when they want, and mandatory wellness/get fit programs, are not going to stop that. Mandatory wellness programs are not going to help the person who has contracted AIDS because of a blood transfusion, they will not help the hemophiliac or someone with Parkinson's, or someone with a family history of cancer. They only serve to find the diseases sooner, adding stress to the mix of medical problems. With all of today's advances in medicine, and I am a firm believer in the power of good medicine, nothing can stop the diabetic who has eaten correctly all if there is a family history of such, or the patient who has heart problems or the one who has renal problems. Once these types of problems begin, they only progress. They can be slowed down, only to have another problem take their place, from the medications used to treat the first problem. People are going to be overweight, they are going to smoke, they are going to drink, they are going to do what they are comfortable with, and if an employer does not want these folks working for them, they will move on, because the USA is a free country.



Everyone can benefit from a healthy diet, but not everyone can afford one. It is expensive to eat correctly all the time. The public is not stupid; people are aware of most of the consequences of their actions, but we are still free. Mandatory weight loss or quit-smoking programs or health education programs will not make the problems facing the employers or the insurance companies go away. They are not conclusive enough. Problems intertwine, which is why it's sometimes difficult to make a correct diagnosis. Doctors go to school for years, and they still do not know everything. Wellness programs that demand from the consumer will add additional expenses for employers and insurance companies as well as the consumer. Even though the medical community has come so far with its advances, insurance companies and employers are looking at that bottom line dollar and lacking the human touch. People are people.

If insurance companies and employers want to have a preventative maintenance program at their own expense, I could understand that--educating people to care for themselves before their problems start. Wellness programs are very ill-conceived. Mandating how someone must look or live only serves to make it difficult for consumers or employers to keep affordable insurance, forcing consumers to work for companies that do not offer or cannot afford insurance--and add to the growing population of the uninsured.