The strong bring up the weak in so many ways, it sucks when it's at a financial detriment. I've never smoked, almost never drink, exercise 5X a week, watch what I eat, rarely get sick. I snack healthy, and only drink water. I get my blood tested annually as well.

There are both salaried and hourly employees here. The hourly have to clock out for anything, be it smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, lunch etc. The salaried don't, but yet people like me don't take smoke breaks while they go outside to waste time. People who are doing less work for more money. Why this society treats smokers like a protected class I don't understand.

I don't have any problem with my health premiums reflecting care for conditions that aren't someone's fault, be it cancer or something else. But the majority of the health problems in this country are caused by people who refuse to take care of themselves. Be it tobacco, poor eating, refusal to exercise. If you choose to treat your body like a landfill you can reap the rewards, but it shouldn't impact my wallet.

I have multiple family members in my extended family with diabetes who don't eat right. My nephew once came home to find my brother in law passed out, his blood sugar was so off the charts the doctors didn't know how it was possible he wasn't in a coma.

When we go to Costco I just look around at people buying soda, cookies, and pop-tarts in bulk and it makes me nauseous. How am I not supposed to judge people who choose to willing put garbage into their body?

I worked on a change to our healthcare coverage as a representative of employees at my last job. As Ptothemo described - there is a whole lot that goes into designing the coverages and costs. Basically we did come up with new coverage options, but in the end had to radically scale back our aggressively priced policy geared towards "younger" employees with fewer health issues because the cost of the more traditional health plan for the employees with more issues and families went up substantially. We ended up scrapping them all and going to one HDHP and used most of the initial savings to give everyone a head start on their new HSA.

Basically - the healthy employees were subsidizing the unhealthy employees (and those who had, or had covered family with major conditions). I saw the numbers, it was eye opening. Something like 87% of the health plan costs were going to 15% of the insured.

In the case of the OP, the answer to those situations is to limit the number of sick days per year before you start penalizing the employee in some other way. I.e. give them 5 sick days, then make them use vacation days for the next 10 days they call in sick. Make them visit a doctor for any sick time over 2 days and give you a medical diagnosis of what caused it. things like that. Make it harder to "just call in sick" after those first 5 days are used and they will not do it as often. If they are truly sick that often that they physically can't work then maybe you just need to let them go.

On the other hand, there are diseases (such as MS) that can cause a person to be unable to do the exercise necessary to earn some of the incentives people are talking about. Some folks with MS may be healthy, but the fatigue from the disease keeps them from working out in the way most people are capable of. Or they may be physically healthy enough other than their MS, but may actually be one of the more expensive people on the health coverage due to the cost of most of the MS medications. I have MS and I work out 4-5 times a week, teach spin classes, and ride the MS150 every year. But my medication retails for ~$5500/month, and my Rx copay is only $40/month. So I am sure I am being subsidized by my coworkers, even though I am "healthy" or "fit" other than my MS.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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So many victims.

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huh?

A couple of people at work said I should just call in sick every now and then to get a break and even things out (same people who call out sick a lot). I kept my comments to myself, but that's the exact mentality that costs the company more and keeps them from moving up (but ***** about how things are in the company). I cannot in good conscience call out sick unless I'm actually sick. I hate missing work outs, so if I can w/o, I can go to work.

To the comment of forcing people to use vacation time when they hit X amount of sick days, I doubt HR would support that. But, I'll bring it up.

Max Power said:

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The strong bring up the weak in so many ways, it sucks when it's at a financial detriment. I've never smoked, almost never drink, exercise 5X a week, watch what I eat, rarely get sick. I snack healthy, and only drink water. I get my blood tested annually as well.

There are both salaried and hourly employees here. The hourly have to clock out for anything, be it smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, lunch etc. The salaried don't, but yet people like me don't take smoke breaks while they go outside to waste time. People who are doing less work for more money. Why this society treats smokers like a protected class I don't understand.

I don't have any problem with my health premiums reflecting care for conditions that aren't someone's fault, be it cancer or something else. But the majority of the health problems in this country are caused by people who refuse to take care of themselves. Be it tobacco, poor eating, refusal to exercise. If you choose to treat your body like a landfill you can reap the rewards, but it shouldn't impact my wallet.

I have multiple family members in my extended family with diabetes who don't eat right. My nephew once came home to find my brother in law passed out, his blood sugar was so off the charts the doctors didn't know how it was possible he wasn't in a coma.

When we go to Costco I just look around at people buying soda, cookies, and pop-tarts in bulk and it makes me nauseous. How am I not supposed to judge people who choose to willing put garbage into their body?

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In the same position. My entire team is overweight with most havin health issues. They make comments quite frequently about how I'm lucky to be thin. My response back has always been I run or workout every morning and eat healthy. When they snack on cookies and drink 2-3 cokes a day I drink water or black coffee. I have no problem supplementing for people with MS or cancer that they cannot prevent but not smoking or laziness.

Yet I pay the same cost for healthcare. It's over $300 a pay period for health insurance. While we have a $750 family deductible I would rather have a higher deductible and the option of an HSA. My wife and I are in our early 30s and healthy. I would love to be able to be putting money into an HSA like at my last job instead of wasting it on a plan we rarely use other than physicals and our daughters check ups.

during my brief foray into civilian life, I worked with a guy who was - no exaggeration - 400 lbs and he was constantly telling me that I shouldn't drink diet cokes because they weren't good for me.

if any of you are self employed or work for a small business that doesn't offer health insurance or it is very expensive to add family and kids. Feel free to contact me there are underwritten PPO plans available that do reward you for your good health and group you together with them to keep your premiums down. jse88@yahoo

At my work, they sold red t-shirts to raise heart awareness. I have to chuckle at all the larda&&es parading around work in their red shirts, while still wolfing down more donuts, etc.

In the end as a society was have gotten soft and weak always choosing the easy route. Tons of families eat fast food several times a day, don't workout, can't cook since they never have tried. We used to have to hunt and forage for food now we can get online and have a 2 liter coke and a bag of Cheetos at our door in 2 hours. All while we sit in front of the TV/computer while kids watch their pads or whatever.

If you are overfat, financially dumb, lazy, stupid, or whatever it is your fault. Stop making excuses and start being the example for your kids and coworkers. If you don't know something ask, read (that little thing in your hand called a phone can do more than social media or better yet read a book). You do not need any fancy diets since they do not work for the majority of people, eat real food mainly meat and vegetables. Make sure to sweat everyday doing whatever you like. That could be a walk or an ultra marathon, just do something.

Being healthy is extremely simple but with our current surroundings it is not always easy. Anything that is worth it is on the other side of hard work.

I mostly agree with you, but we must remember that not everyone has the means to be healthy. Fresh produce can be very expensive in some neighborhoods. I saw a family the other day at the dollar store doing their grocery shopping there. I don't know if they could've afforded better if they cut out other stuff in their life, but for a lot of people eating healthy isn't so easy. Unfortunately the unhealthy, shelf stable stuff, and fast food is what tends to permeate these neighborhoods. For some it is definitely a choice, but not all.

bigtruckguy3500 said:

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I mostly agree with you, but we must remember that not everyone has the means to be healthy. Fresh produce can be very expensive in some neighborhoods. I saw a family the other day at the dollar store doing their grocery shopping there. I don't know if they could've afforded better if they cut out other stuff in their life, but for a lot of people eating healthy isn't so easy. Unfortunately the unhealthy, shelf stable stuff, and fast food is what tends to permeate these neighborhoods. For some it is definitely a choice, but not all.

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Hmm - not sure I agree. It is more challenging for sure, but possible. Tanya93 over on the General Board does a good job of shooting down the "poverty = eat like crap" theory.

I, OTOH, think it is very challenging yet doable. We have the fattest poor people in the world! What a country!

Max Power said:

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I think we could improve our country significantly if there were 2 things added to mandatory high school curriculum.

1. - Personal Finance, people need to be taught about basic knowledge. Cover 401k, Roth, pension (it still exists in some places) car loans, mortgages, credit cards, insurance, etc. Bring in experts to teach it, in the most basic sense. The average person in this country is so financially illiterate it's truly mind blowing.

2. - Cooking, not like home economics, straight up an entire year of nothing but healthy, affordable meals that anyone can do. Just being competent might curb some of society's leaning on fast food, processed crap, etc if you had the knowledge of how to make a decent meal for low cost. Especially if you expose people to international cuisine that focuses on flavor and veggies. I grew up in the sticks, I never had things like Thai or Indian food growing up, but as an adult I'm really blown away with what Asian countries have done with vegetables. You don't have to eat meat and potatoes for every meal of your life.

I know this is a pipe dream, but if people took more responsibility for their well being things would actually get better.

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I used to be in this camp... but at the end of the day, both of these are cultural issues. High school teachers and a little technical know how isn't fixing the problem... parents instilling good habits would though.

Plenty of easy to access education sources out there for free for both of these... but I think everyone would agree that the problems in both areas have gotten worse, not better.

Didn't the Twinkie guy's health improve after losing the weight? I'm unclear of the point you're trying to make.

There are exceptions. But I think we can agree most people we personally know aren't obese because it's cheaper. If you put any sort of effort into it, you'll still come out ahead when buying fresh produce, meat, etc. vs frozen foods, instant foods, chips, snacks, desserts, eating out every day, etc.

Sure, calorie to calorie crap food is cheaper. But the whole point is people are eating too many damn calories.

It was one of the top 3 threads when I posted.

Well we are going to outlive then by a decade or two. So we have that.

"It's 100% on the individual."

Agree 100%. If more people understood this and lived their lives this way, the USA would be a totally different country.

FbgTxAg said:

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It's never - not in the history of mankind - been easier or cheaper to eat healthier than this moment in the United States.

It's also never been easier or cheaper to eat unhealthier.

It's 100% on the individual.

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I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone pushing a cart at Sam's with stuff in it they CLEARLY should not be eating and I'm overwhelmed with the desire to say something...

But I'm not stupid.

To add to the OP...

My wife and I are very healthy people. I haven't used my insurance except for dermatology checks on my back and my wife's yearly visit.

My wife has always had bad feet and finally decided to get them fixed so she could maintain a healthy lifestyle. 2 $70k surgeries and we paid 11k out of pocket. So our insurance raises our rates immediately after the second surgery about 150% a month after they had a good 6 years of getting money off of us. I guess it was a win as we paid $30k over 5 years for "$140k worth of surgeries."

Not to get political, but eff the idea of single payer or anything along those lines. I am glad to be able to walk away from our insurer.