Obamacare's workplace health incentive programs penalize the poor

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The Affordable Care Act allows employers to incentivize healthy living by penalizing workers who fail to quit smoking, meet certain weight or exercise targets, or maintain low cholesterol or blood pressure. The idea is that “wellness” programs will nudge workers toward lifestyles that will benefit them and their employers. But in practice, many plans appear to save money by charging their company’s sickest and poorest employees more, a system that runs counter to the law’s overall goal.

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Research does not show that incentives drive workers to reach certain healthy-lifestyle goals, or that workers who reach them spend meaningfully less on health care than those who don’t.

Take weight loss. Many plans want workers to hit a healthy “body mass index,” but the evidence on health spending by overweight workers is mixed. Horwitz’s survey, published in Health Affairs, found that those with high BMIs don’t necessarily cost their employees more than thinner workers, overall. (Obesity is related to higher lifetime health costs, but much is spent after retirement.) Horwitz also found that financial incentives weren’t driving much weight loss. The average weight lost in programs she examined was just a few pounds, and most workers gained them back over time. After all, she says, people already have many physical, social, and financial pressures to lose weight—and they still struggle.

The same appears to hold true for smoking, another expensive and stigmatized risk factor. Wal-Mart, among others, has paired antismoking programs with financial penalties for those who fail to quit. Entry-level workers there pay about $17, on average, every two weeks for health insurance, while smokers must pay an additional $12. Still, early results are disappointing, says Sally Welborn, the company’s senior vice president for global benefits. “We haven’t seen a significant reduction in the percentage of our population that smokes right now,” she says. “It seems to be stuck.” And even when workers do quit smoking, their overall health doesn’t improve instantly.

But even if an incentive program fails to reduce short-term medical spending, it still can save the company money by charging workers who fail to meet benchmarks a higher premium. It can save companies money in other ways, too. Benicomp’s website boasts that workers who can’t meet the health targets “may be motivated to seek other coverage options.” That could mean dropping their insurance, joining a spouse’s plan, or leaving their job. Those options would take the employee’s coverage off the company’s books without reducing the worker’s overall health spending or improving her health.

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While employers have been free to use wellness incentives for several years, the Affordable Care Act broadened the financial penalties companies can impose. Now, they can charge unwell workers up to an additional 30 percent of their total health-plan premium—which amounts to more than $1,000 for the average employee. And the law does not require that programs be scientifically proven to enhance health or lower spending.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/why-those-wellness-programs-don-t-work-20130411