Wellness Programs

The health reform rules, laws, and regulations are providing a launch pad for employers to establish wellness programs in the workplace. This may sound like a wonderful idea to most individuals, but when you begin to analyze it, you have to wonder. Who is the wellness program for and what is it about?

Are the employer health care wellness programs another way for the government to keep close tabs on their investment, we the people? Is this a way to attain more productivity from the employees? Does this offer more control to the employers because they are the ones paying the average monthly cost of health insurance for each employee?

Some employers are now becoming creative in their healthcare offerings about these wellness centers. They are offering rewards through financial incentives for healthy behavior and penalties for unhealthy, poor behavior. Are you sure, this is what you want? A few of the incentives being offered through the healthcare wellness centers are.

1. Health care incentives for employees to lose weight

2. Health care incentives for employees to lower their blood pressure

3. Health care incentives for employees to lower their cholesterol levels

4. Health care incentives for employees to better control their diabetes

However, you must think long and hard that this is what you want. All healthcare wellness programs are a benefit to society. Their instructional value helps the medical healthcare community and it also helps the health insurance industry, but is this the way you want it? The government has been trying for a long time to influence and control your thoughts and behavior and now your employer is influencing what you do, where you go, and what you eat when you are no longer on the payroll clock.

What is interesting about this partially implemented healthcare reform is that it does not allow for any dissension among us the people. Some individuals have paid their way when they need medical healthcare services. Why is everyone mandated to purchase health insurance coverage that amounts to nothing more than another government tax?

Will the government and your employer begin to dictate the activities you will conduct on your own time? Will the health insurance carriers dictate what television shows you must view and which type of music you must listen to? Will the government dictate what automobile you may own and drive and how to rearrange the interior of your home?