Health Discounts »

skybarn:

mikehudack:

heyitsnoah:

This is great. People who make lots of healthy decisions should pay less for health insurance than people who make lots of risky decisions. It’s common sense, and the fact that this isn’t currently the case is one of many reasons why our healthcare system is broken.

I’m going to tell my 18 month old that he needs to stop making all of the risky decisions to get ear infections on the weekend and rack up a $8000 emergency room charge. Or my son,  with the congenital liver condition. Plenty of marathon runners have heart problems and plenty of fat people are perfectly healthy. I love how employers are convincing themselves that health is entirely within the employees control. And what’s the next step. Studies say we need 8 hrs sleep. Are you going to tuck your employees in at night? What are they doing on the weekend? How many drinks at the bar did you have? How good a driver are you? Did you wear a condom? What about skiing, mountain biking, rock climbing? That’s some risky shit right there, worse than a cheeseburger. But it’s just seems more acceptable. What about medications that put on weight? Nobody worries about this as risky behavior because we’ve deemed it all socially acceptable, or it’s more hidden than a cheeseburger or fries.

Truthfully, The most risky behavior someone can partake in is too have kids or get older. So, if your company is full of young post-graduates zipping around and being spry that’s great. Except that your probably paying through the ass so the can go out and douche it up at night and destroy their liver and weaken their immune system. Or because they are hurtling down a mountain at insane speeds. But that’s fine. That’s cool. It’s old, fat people with kids who are jacking up the rates.

Entropy is a bitch and we can’t do much about it.

Okay, a few points here:

1. This program is not a discount off medical insurance. It is my understanding it is a discount at Whole Foods. The article outlines that currently WF employees receive 20% off and the most healthy of the bunch will get an extra 10%. This is something WF is doing in addition to offering health insurance. The company is incentivizing healthy behavior.
2. No, you don’t need to tell your children to be healthier. Whole Foods is not incentivizing your children’s behavior here, they’re incentivizing yours. I assume your children would continue to be covered just as they were before. (I have no idea about Whole Foods insurance, so I can’t say for sure whether children are even covered.)
3. It’s true, weight is not always a perfect barometer of health. That, I assume is why they’ve chosen a number of factors that, when combined and weighted, I imagine do give a pretty good indication of how healthy you are.
4. Part of the program, as outlined in the article, is that WF is also going to offer health screenings. Getting people to get checked out is a good thing. I imagine WF is offering this for free, that’s also a good thing. If you turn out to not be eligible for any discount at least you’ve been checked out and you know your health. This is an incentive to visit the doc as much as to get healthier.
5. The car insurance industry definitely charges you more if you’re not a good driver (one of the points made above).
6. I’m not sure that the most risky behavior someone can partake in is having kids. According to USA Today, “The U.S. maternal mortality rate rose to 13 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2004, according to statistics released this week by the National Center for Health Statistics.” As a point of reference, the article points to “increasing maternal obesity and a jump in Caesarean sections” as possible causes. In fact, child-birth doesn’t register anywhere near the top causes of death (Heart disease, Cancer, Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases, Chronic lower respiratory diseases, Accidents (unintentional injuries), Diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, Influenza and Pneumonia, Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis, Septicemia).
7. It’s probably true that the most dangerous thing you can do is get old. But that’s why we have Medicare I believe. If private insurance had to cover all those folks our costs would be through the roof. (I may be wrong about this one, not totally sure.)

1. socialismandrum liked this
2. sopranocat reblogged this from joshmohrer and added:

   Thank you. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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6. joshmohrer reblogged this from mikehudack and added:

   “This is an attempt to combat the biggest problem with health insurance as it currently exists: There is no incentive to...

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   here’s the thing about that- I went out and got myself a job with health insurance. The taxpayers will never have to...

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    You can smoke if you want to - go ahead. It is certainly is unfair for the taxpayers, however, to foot the bill if you...

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26. mikehudack reblogged this from heyitsnoah and added:

    This is great. People who make lots of healthy decisions should pay less for health insurance than people who make lots...

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