With health care costs rising more each day, employers are constantly looking for ways to lower their expenses and give employees incentives for healthy behaviors. Whole Foods has launched a new program for their employees called the Team Member Healthy Discount Incentive Program. All team members currently get a 20% discount on Whole Foods products. But now they will have the opportunity to get higher discounts (up to 30%) based on health measures like blood pressure and BMI. So the healthier you are, the more of a discount you'd be eligible to receive. The program is totally optional, so anyone choosing not to participate will still get the standard 20% discount. In a letter to employees, CEO John Mackey outlined the details of the program. There are various discount levels: bronze, silver, gold and platinum based on an employee's blood pressure, cholesterol, BMI and nicotine use. This program is drawing a lot of criticism for a number of reasons. Opponents argue that BMI is not a good measure of health (since someone who is very healthy but muscular can have a high BMI). They also argue that controlling discounts based on health means that more "unhealthy" people won't get the same access to the healthy products Whole Foods sells- even though they might need them the most. For many companies, I think the time has come to start getting creative to control health care costs. But is this a good way to go about it? What do you think? Is this a good idea or does it make you uncomfortable? |
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