NYT: Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria

In case you didn’t catch or have a chance to read the article, Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria, in a York Times story from last November, I’ve included a link (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/health/policy/29diet.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper) and some interesting points, from the article, here.

1. Helping employees to adopt healthy eating habits can make a huge difference!

"....the potential for health care savings is huge. A study in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs concluded that 75 percent of the country’s $2.5 trillion in health care spending has to do with four increasingly prevalent chronic diseases: obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Most cases of these diseases, the report stated, are preventable because they are caused by behaviors like poor diets, inadequate exercise and smoking."

2. Employers and employees are feeling the pain of the “do nothing” strategy. Companies who are doing wellness well are managing these rising costs better. Several examples are cited in the article.

"....sticker shock is confronting all kinds of employers, which together provide 160 million Americans with health care coverage. But the cost of delivering that insurance has surged 31 percent over the last five years, representing the fastest-growing single corporate expense, according to Towers Perrin, the management consulting firm. Those costs take a huge bite out of the bottom line and hurt employees, many of whom see their paychecks shrink as employers pass along the extra costs."
3. Focus on obesity!
“Obesity alone threatens to overwhelm the system. In a recent study, Kenneth Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, found that if trends continued, annual health care costs related to obesity would total $344 billion by 2018, or more than 20 percent of total health care spending. (It now accounts for 9 percent.)Dr. Thorpe also said that if the incidence of obesity fell to its 1987 level, it would free enough money to cover the nation’s uninsured population.”

As I sometimes say to my dawdling children when we are trying to get a lot accomplished in a short period of time (i.e. getting dressed, brushing teeth, putting on shoes and a jacket before running to the bus stop) “let’s focus!” Here, too, I think we need to focus on tackling obesity. I have often said that if we can help employees lose weight, learn to eat well and live a balanced life, their rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other chronic conditions would diminish as well. In turn, health care spending will decrease! It’s been proven time and again! The data is there!

Bottom line, the “do nothing “strategy isn’t working for anyone. Companies and organizations need to figure ways to bring wellness to the workplace because they are already paying the high price of an unhealthy employee population. And with decades of research documenting real ROI, wellness is a real solution for organizations.

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Source: New York Times: Health Care Savings Could Start in the Cafeteria. November 29, 2009.