Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990 TAG: 9003133026
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At U-Haul International, the big truck and trailer rental firm, employees and spouses who are overweight or underweight will find their paychecks lightened by $5 every other week for health insurance, beginning in April. The same goes for smokers. Those who don't smoke and are the correct weight get the insurance at no cost.
Pointe Resorts, operator of three large resort hotels in Phoenix, pays 90 percent of the health insurance premium for executives who don't smoke and weigh what they should. For smokers and the obese, the company will pay only half.
After years of pounding on doctors and hospitals to cut costs and of exhorting workers to adopt healthier lifestyles, a small but growing number of employers are turning to "wellness" programs. Pressed by the high cost of medical care, these employers hope that putting a monetary premium on better health will succeed where other cost-containment strategies have failed.
And whether they are called incentives, as they are by most employers, or penalties, as some employees see them, the effect is the same: Employees who live healthier lives, who avoid what a Baker Hughes official termed "illnesses of choice, if you will," pay less than those who do not.
Smoking and excess pounds are the most common targets, but some companies extend their programs to such risk factors as blood pressure, cholesterol levels, use of car seat belts and others.
Benefits consultant Michael Carter and other experts said the number of companies talking about these steps is far greater than those that actually have taken them, and they expect rapid growth in the next few years.
The potential savings for the companies are enormous.
A study done by Control Data Corp. found that medical costs are 18 percent higher for smokers than non-smokers, 11 percent higher for non-exercisers than exercisers, 13 percent more for those who don't wear seat belts and 11 percent higher for those overweight or with high blood pressure, according to David R. Anderson of StayWell Health Management Systems Inc., once part of Control Data but since spun off.
by CNB