AmeriGas To Employees: Get Checkups Or Lose Your Insurance

wsj.com:

Last year, AmeriGas Propane Inc. gave its employees an ultimatum: get their medical checkups, or lose their health insurance.

The nationwide propane distributor took the unusual step after facing years of steep increases in the cost of health coverage for its roughly 6,000 workers. The company's work force was aging, and many employees had unhealthy habits the average worker is 46, and around 44% are smokers. And people weren't getting tests or preventive care that could help them avoid heart attacks, diabetes or cancer.

Read the whole story: wsj.com

Comments

[mellene]

I have a private insurance policy that I only could get as I'm self employed. It's a catastrophic coverage with $5,000 deductible so who can afford to pay for a physical on top of all of that each year? The premium increases are through the roof anyway at over 50% increase in less than two years. This is what the government to reform and regulate not the coverage paid for by employers and the goverment whose coverage we subsidize as taxpayers.

[SamKnause]

Did anyone catch the part about colonoscopies being too intrusive so they won't be included? What is more intrusive than a pap smear?

[nah415]

This is a great idea! Tell the smokers to stop or lose their insurance. Make overweight employees join a gym and Weight Watchers. Taking responsibility for ones self is not a bad thing at all! I think more companies should use this approach.

[BrettnCalgary]

You are pushing beyond what any rational person should think is an acceptable infringement of personal liberty.

[skippyB]

Why should the healthy pay for others' care when it's preventable. Get out of my pocket - because that infringes on my personal liberty.

[norepublicanleftbehind]

What if these folks wind up laid off after an illness is found? Does Amerigas assume financial responsibilty for the former employee who cannotget insurance for a "pre-exisiting condition". If so fine.

If not maybe Amerigas should Unionize under the Employee Free Choice Act so that they, not their employer could decide when to seek the services of a doctor.

What's next, doing an inventory of workers lives and homes and referring to them as chattle?

[mjeffn]

universal Health Care NOW!!!

[motoGpifupleez]

The "double whammy" beauty of this tactic is anyone found with any, ANY sort of "problem" will be summarily dropped from the roles.
A "win-win" for the insurance companies.
Oh by the way, be careful what you look up on "Web MD", the NSA just might pass that inquiry along to your insurance company and you'll find that you've been dropped for "withholding information", or better yet, the ever popular "pre-existing condition" clause.

[PartyPartyParty]

If we had universal single payer health care in this country, nobody would ever be dropped.

[rigormrtis]

Nor would there be an incentive to stay healthy if there were no direct financial repurcussions due to continued poor health choices.

There needs to ba a carrot and a stick.

[PartyPartyParty]

Good for AmeriGas: they're paying 100% of the required doctor visits and tests, which is only fair. I note that the plan also pays 100% of the costs of blood pressure, cholesterol, asthma and diabetes medication.

Now, if we had single-payer universal health care in this country, AmeriGas wouldn't have to cover all these costs: the giant pool all U.S. residents would be paying into would cover them.

[pastpartisan]

doesn't this violate a constructional right? A civil right?

good articles:
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/link/redir.pxe?www.iamned.com

[marxmarv]

You know, I was just remarking to my sweetie the other day about how the US is starting to resemble a feedlot and citizens are taking altogether too willingly to the role of cattle.

[beingrepubwontmakeurich]

The bottom line is this: if we want to have control over our own healthcare, we - as a society - need to start by taking control of our own health.

I am not a fan of any employer mandating anything as a condition of employment. But I'm disgusted at all we know about healthful living in this country and the small percentage of people who actually take responsibility for their own health.

As a society we made a deal with the devil a long time ago. Let us keep smoking and drinking and sitting on our fat fast-food filled asses and we'll pay you to fix us when we get sick from it. Well now it's time to pay up. We have choices, but we can't have it both ways. As long as we continue to hand the power over to the insurance industry we will be its slave, and it will dictate exactly what we pay.

[drjay79]

NBC had story on the nightly news, several weeks ago, actually making fun of people eating healthy at baseball games. Just we need more of in this country, they should be ashamed.

[Fabini]

" The company [AmeriGas] doesn’t force employees to take any action based on their test results, which because of medical-privacy laws aren’t shared with AmeriGas."

". . . get their medical checkups, or lose their health insurance. . . . after facing years of steep increases in the cost of health coverage for its roughly 6,000 workers."

Look into the future. AmeriGas' cost of health coverage keeps going up even though it has mandated annual checkups. Why? Insurance savings are negated by an upsurge in checkup costs. The insurance company is still paying out, so it raises rates to AmeriGas.

Solution? Weed out the sick or potentially sick employees. As is, it is a no win situation for employers and employees.

Here's a new credo we must face: "Insurance doesn't insure."

[jeffp26]

Actually I see nothing wrong with this approach.

We should tax foods, etc. and cigarettes, alcohol, and anything else that contributes to poor health, to pay for healthcare for all.

Raise the taxes high enough, and people will learn healthy habits, instead of deadly ones.

[sonoffestus]

Alcohol and cigs are highly taxed here in Canada. We also have high sales taxes, most of which goes towards healthcare. It's a good idea. I think more about how much alcohol I consume
than when I lived in the States. Never smoked cigs, but at 7 or $8.00 per pack it would get me to think about it, if I were a smoker.

[IndelibleVoice]

I agree. But in the United States healthy foods are moderately more expensive than their unhealthy counterparts. Until low-cost healthy alternatives are introduced to the market, taxing those foods would be a mistake and possibly lead to malnutrition for those in poverty.

[berensma]

Absolutely true. The taxes on the unhealthy food should be converted to subsidies on healthful food. Of course, it never seems to really work that way, but in an ideal world...

[PartyPartyParty]

It's not necessarily true that healthy foods are more costly; it's that many people can't get to where they're sold; they live in poor neighborhoods, where supermarkets aren't willing to open stores.

http://www.cfpa.net/Grocery.PDF

[marxmarv]

It's even worse when you factor in the opportunity cost of preparing your own food vs. buying pre-packaged, processed foods made with little regard to health factors.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

we already tax things like "cigarettes, alcohol, and anything else that contributes to poor health, to pay for healthcare for all" its called: The State of New York!

[WorkingClass]

AmeriGas employees. Your employer now owns your body. You are serfs. You cant quit because that would be even worse. Your only option is to do as you are told until your body becomes a risk.

[Fabini]

A harsh way to put it, but truthful.

[tom928]

I'm sorry but that is really a stupid and reactionary way of thinking. As texastrixie points out below, because is it is the rising costs of advanced medicine that need to be gotten under control, it doesn't matter whether it's private plans, government plans, or whatever, we are all going to be more pressured more in the near future by various social forces to live healthier life styles.

[Fabini]

". . . we are all going to be more pressured more in the near future by various social forces to live healthier life styles."

If your statement is true, I must ask myself, will we be healthier? My answer is no. We may adopt new styles, but being healthier is not a style.

[WorkingClass]

The rising cost of health care has much more to do with larceny than the living habits of the population. There are advocates for militant policing of people's private lives. Religious zealots want to control your sex life. Some want to peek into your medicine cabinet while others want to snoop in your refrigerator. There are people who would love to have the authority to "take you for a run" every morning. MAKE everybody buy insurance. MAKE everybody get a check up. Think of what "we" could achieve if everybody would just DO AS WE SAY!

You are at liberty to join with the authoritarians. Be advised that you will run into people like me who are extremely rude and uncooperative and will REFUSE to bend to your will.

[Meggie]

Sounds about right. That, or you will be removed for some cause because they'll know that you are too risky to keep on.

[nicole5]

Yep, exactly.

[texastrixie]

People are so worried that a government health insurance plan would mandate your care. What no one seems to understand is that we have to get health care costs down. No matter who is in charge, or what system we have, this means that all of us are going to see our health care decisions made by the patient, the doctor, and whoever pays the bill.

If there is no public option (which mandates that one's previous health history cannot be used to deny them coverage), employers in the future will both (1) find ways/reasons not to hire people with health problems, (2) be able to mandate check-ups, and probably treatment, and (3) control your behavior in many different ways. The time is coming when you won't get that raise, and will pay more in premiums, if you don't keep your weight at the right level. Or your cholesterol is too high.

As to being able to pick your doc? If you're a boomer, the time when you can "pick your doc" is fading fast. If you are close to retirement, find yourself a primary care physician who is much younger than you, and get on their patient list NOW. If you want to retire in a new locality, find out how bad the doctor shortage is before you move. In case you haven't heard, many doctors will not take a new patient if they are paid by Medicare.

[tom928]

Excellent points!

[dadw5boys]

THEY DO MANDATE TREATMENTS !!

IF THE EMPLOYERS PAY IN ANYWAY THEY HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS !!!

READ THE FINE PRINT PEOPLE !!!

[sonoffestus]

Insurance companies already mandate your care.

[redstrat]

this is another reason why we need an affordable public option so if you dont approve of your employers health plan you can have your own.

[Fabini]

I am sympathetic with employers having to bear the cost of health insurance, BUT the same employers dictating how employees should maintain their health is wrong. Yes, we should all strive for healthiness, don't get me wrong.

My issue here is that dictating checkups is literally one step away from making employment decisions based on those checkups.

"Oh, you are predisposed to [name your illness], we don't need your services any more."

[Fromageball]

They never said that they would demand the results of the check-ups. They want to make sure that employees have their physicals done so they can catch anything serious early. I don't see what is so unreasonable about that.

[Fabini]

From a health perspective I agree 100%. But human nature being what it is and that nature being magnified many fold in the free enterprise sector, eventually (soon-rather-tan-later) employers WILL use that information to lower their costs.

[flapjack]

The goal is to discover problems early on when they are relatively less expensive to treat.

Government healthcare will require frequent checkups as well.

[Fabini]

I respectively use the same response as above.

[Newsmonger]

The employer cannot even demand those checkup results and the hospital under law except the employee signed a waiver cannot send them to the employer.

I really do not see anything wrong with this approach. In the US, we are something very lazy even to our demerits. It is to one's advantage if an earlier stage of a diesease is dictated because the chances of survival are great.

Moreso, save for the gas money to drive to the hospital; these checkups are 100% free (In that, you have already paid or will continue to pay your health care insurance premium regardless of you taking or not taking the test.)

[marxmarv]

That's a disingenuous use of the word "free" which only obfuscates the faults of private insurance. "Paid for", please.

[ddanimal]

Thats absolutely correct.

Thats why they should use a carrot (e.g. vitamins and nutrition counseling) instead of a stick.

One thing they should do is do blood tests for transfats. If you have been eating transfats, your insurance rates go WAY WAY up. Make the