Expect to keep seeing more of this since people want their healthcare "free". I am a devotee of red meat and pork, and only eat full-fat dairy. Just had my yearly bloodwork-my HDL is 83 and my LDL is 93 (they weren't equipped to measure particle size, I'll have to find a place that is next year). I eat little fruit, few carbs (mostly beans and tortillas on mexican night, the odd french fry)and veggies. I've also mostly taken myself off sugar unless it's something phenomenal.

When the government "gives" you your healthcare, the government has a vested interest in keeping you healthy. Healthy by their determination,the vehicle for that is too dictate whatever "healthy habits" they deem appropriate and a penalty for noncompliance. Not at all unlike threatening to withhold social security checks in an effort to extort congress into making the "correct" decision on a bill. The government will decide what activities and habits are acceptable and unacceptable. All in order to ensure that healthcare costs are kept as low as possible of course. A very soviet scheme in the end.

Well what can you expect if you've already turned over the cost of your healthcare to someone else. This may seem like a rash assumption, but I doubt Chicago "city workers" contribute much at all to their plans. If your medical bills are being paid by a corrupt (C'MON, it's Chicago) bureaucracy that gets the money by forcing it out of actual productive citizens, then you really have no say. What, did you think your medical decisions would be efficient and based on correct evaluations of the current science?

And I note the first three of us had pretty much the same response.

The irony that everyone in the wellness debate always seems to miss...

Who's the most cost-effective patient in a health care system?

Easy: It's the guy who never goes to see his doctor, smokes like a chimney, eats fast food every day and then drops dead from a massive coronary at the age of 64.

From a pure cost analysis, it's the "healthy" people who end up getting the hip replacements and knee replacements and elder care when they're in their 80's who are bankrupting the system.

They don't pay extra RIGHT NOW. They will later. Or they will be told that if they want to keep their health insurance, they will have to lose weight and lower their cholesterol on one of those wonderful 5% successful low-fat diets. When they don't succeed, they'll be blamed for it, and probably assessed fees based on how far OVER their government-controlled "ideal" weight is.

DH's insurance from work has s stop smoking program that gives you the drugs or patches for free if you talk to a counselor at least twice and receive a packet of reading material.
One of his job's customers charges $50 extra for the employee's part of the insurance premium if the employee smokes, so quitting gives them a raise.

This is a simple cost benefit analysis, but nobody can or wants to accept AB's assertion that it is the non user that pays for the user, 'cuz somehow that breaks people's brains.

If healthier people cost less to insure, than it makes sense to encourage people to be healthy, if you are picking up part of their tab. In most large corporations [mine is a fortune 50] the part of the health insurance they pay for is considered part of the overall compensation package, like pay. So they like to couch this as saving some of your own money.

In addition I get extra healthcare dollars to spend against copays and deductible if I say I don't smoke and take a healthy questionnaire. Since they have gone self-insured, there is not much of a choice.

That this is being done, is a bit irritating because I hate being nagged, but from the provider perspective, whoever they are, this is a question of maximization...

The ideal person to cover is that one that Never uses the doctor and is healthy, which will offset people who actually do use services.

IMHO this is no different than setting pricing based on an individual's risk, and most people accept that as part of what insurance actually IS.

Essentially this is the collective price we need to pay in order to have available healthcare as we know it now. Theoretically it would be better for each individual to pay their doctor on their own need to use a doctor. The problem arises that we would not be able to have truly lifesaving tests, procedures or preventive care, because those things would be more expensive than an individual EVER could afford. To the point where they wouldn't be inventing the tests or procedures because there would be no return on investment to have them. We would return to a time when getting sick might be a death sentence.
I don't see many people advocating such a thing. If we are to mutually insure, than maximization dictates the people TRY to be healthy to keep cost down. Incentivizing it so that people are invested in doing so seems like a logical extension. Penalizing people, actually doesn't work, but they will try it eventually.

If all the info is out in the open, I'm not so sure this is a bad thing, really. Our foray into HMO's probably WAS a bad thing, in that people tend to get MORE services when it's just $20 copay, and they never bear the other costs. When you pay the copay, and you have to pay 15% or 20% of the overall bill, well then you start to be careful what kind of services you need.

Everyone's fighting over who gets to be in the cannibal pot, and who gets to eat.

Didn't see any comments on the agricultural surplus items that were used for years (maybe still?) to supplement the diets of assistance recipients, logs of cheese, dried potato's and other high calorie foods that the feds had bought up to help support farm prices and needed to get rid of while they were still edible.
When I lived in the ghetto a quarter century ago I saw this in action.

On another subject, too many people wait until they are sick to decide that health insurance is something they should allocate resources for. This is similar to waiting to buy car insurance until you've had an accident. While as a libertarian I hate the idea, I don't see any other choice than to let those people suffer and die as an example or make everyone pay for health insurance. Of course the argument is that if they don't want to buy auto insurance, lots of people don't, so no one has to drive an automobile. I guess having the advantages of modern medicine should be optional also. Are we on to something here?

Lasik eye surgery continues to improve and costs are not going up anything like with other surgical procedures. The fact the govenrment doesn't mandate availability or pay for the procedure doesn't have anything to do with that, probably.

I can do this one better... where my wife works, the wellness program is *mandatory* if you want to be on their insurance. If you don't sign up, they drop you, period. And among other things, part of it is signing an affidavit that you will not smoke. And it's not cheap either. It's expensive enough that young single employees are refusing it and taking out Blue Cross individual policies instead, because that's more cost effective.

Somewhat unrelated, but my brain is about to explode. I just read an article on msn talking about a study that strengthens the relationship between type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s. At the end of the article they say that the way to reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes is well known: exercise more and reduce weight. NOT A WORD about sugar and carbs. Unbelievable!