Congress Plans Incentives for Healthy Habits

“In its effort to overhaul health care, Congress is planning to give employers sweeping new authority to reward employees for healthy behavior, including better diet, more exercise, weight loss and smoking cessation. A web of federal rules limits what employers and insurers can do now. Congress is seriously considering proposals to provide tax credits or other subsidies to employers who offer wellness programs that meet federal criteria. In addition, lawmakers said they would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior among employees. Two Democratic senators working on comprehensive health legislation, Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, have taken the lead in devising such incentives. ‘Prevention and wellness should be a centerpiece of health care reform,’ said Mr. Harkin, who regularly climbs the stairs to his seventh-floor office on Capitol Hill. The White House agrees. One of President Obama’s eight principles for health legislation is that it must ‘invest in prevention and wellness,’ a goal espoused in almost identical words by Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah. Frank B. McArdle, a health policy expert at Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm, said, ‘Wellness and prevention programs have become a mainstream part of the benefits offered by large employers, and it’s virtually certain that Congress will include incentives for such programs’ in its bill..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/health/policy/10health.html?_r=1&ref=global-home