Why Workers Should Be Wary About Corporate Wellness

http://www.healthcare-now.org/why-workers-should-be-wary-about-corporate-wellness

Among the other groups sounding the alarm about this trend are Families USA, Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart and Diabetes Associations. A report by the HPI at Georgetown called in February 2012 for new federal and state standards that will protect consumers from “programs that inappropriately punish workers in poor health, are overly coercive, or create perverse financial incentives that result in poorer health outcomes.”

As Cancer Society lobbyist Dick Woodruff told National Public Radio, “The whole point of healthcare reform is to make sure that everyone gets insurance. And if people have to pay more because they’re unhealthy, that’s a barrier. It defeats the whole purpose.”

California Nurses Association co-president DeAnn McEwan, a nurse for nearly forty years, sees great risk of “discrimination through backdoor redlining for individuals with pre-existing conditions and disabilities.” She points out that the workers “more likely to have the health conditions that wellness programs target are low-income individuals and racial/ethnic minorities.” By no coincidence, she says, they also “face barriers to health such as unsafe neighborhoods; poor air quality; substandard, decaying housing; and lack of access to affordable, healthy food.”

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e danger of a membership backlash to the wrong kind of wellness plan is very real. In 2011, labor organizations represented on Oregon’s Public Employee Benefits Board (PEBB), agreed to a new “Health Engagement Model” (HEM), that required mandatory “risk assessments” (including waist measuring), plus penalties for non-compliance. According to one labor educator in the state, the HEM “riled up many workers, who turned their fury and frustration on the unions.” The Service Employees International Union was among those soon apologizing for “a poorly communicated change to our health plans that included a punitive surcharge” and “got us started on the wrong foot.” Labor officials later persuaded the PEBB that non-participants in “health engagement” should no longer be subject to the surcharge; instead, participants are now rewarded with an additional $17.50 per pay period. However, the health plan forces non-participating workers and their families to pay $100 to $300 more in deductibles, a “punitive aspect” still opposed by their unions.