Pepsico gives its employees at $75 gift card for filling out an online health survey, and then there can be a bonus gift card if your particular workplace completes the most surveys. I think there's also more gift cards available if you continue with a customized program that improves your diet and exercise answers you gave in the initial survey.
My wife's company gave everyone this electronic pedometer. I think it links to their computer. She left it home today and I was thinking about clipping it to the dog's collar for the day.
There's no perfect measurement, but smoking and diet determine about 80% of lifestyle-related illnesses. I'm tired of paying to insure people who refuse to do anything to improve their own health.
Already did that. Ours isn't electric, it's got that ball inside on a spring. But I put it on the neighbor's dog when we had an office contest.
No, because if I got caught cheating, I'd have to explain that I actually knew someone who went to Katy Perry concerts. I'd be the laughing stock in my office.
Most of the excessive cost we pay for heathcare is due to terrible inefficiences in the system, pill pushing doctors feeding an eager society of people wanting a drug for everything, needless visits to the doctor for the simplest of things, uneeded testing suggested by doctors in order to cover themselves agasint lawsuits and last but not at all least, a corrupt, sue happy legal system that defies common sense. But hey, let's not fix the real problems, just punish the average Joe a little bit more by getting in his wallet. This will not drive overall costs down anymore than limiting magazine capacity will stop a murderer.
Curious you forgot the biggest contributor to higher prices of all - insurance. People get to go to the doctor without paying the full price. So what are you going to do when your kid is sick? Treat him at home? Or take him to the doctor for a $5 copay? Then what's the doctor going to do? Kvetch at you for wasting his time with your kid who has the sniffles? Or order some tests just to be sure? And when it really is just a cold, then what? Tell you that you wasted your trip or write up a script for some drugs? Then, are you going to get the drugs? Of course, they are cheap. And the insurance company forks over a stack of Benjies for some kid with a little cold. Demand for health care increases. Naturally the insurance company can see this coming a mile away so they had raised their rates - passing the costs onto everyone. And it is absolutely hysterical that the libs think the solution to cheaper healthcare is to give *everyone* insurance so we all can ride this pony. LOL. If something doesn't work, just do more of it until it does. If banging your head against the wall doesn't make you feel good, then bang harder!
Roughly speaking I'd guess smoking and obesity correlate. One replaced the other. Now we just need to correlate the non smoking, ideal weight person with psy problems. Depressed, anxiety, substance abuse, dsyfuntional in a hundred other ways. but they look healthy. Perhaps we could examine lifestyles of health care professionals.