My Unhealthy Lifestyle is Your Problem!
Posted July 25th, 2008 by xntryk1
output
23 Jul 2008 | 10:30 AM ET
My Unhealthy Lifestyle is Your Problem!
New Survey Uncovers Disconnect Between Responsibility
for Personal Health And Who Should Pay For It
CHICAGO (BUSINESS WIRE) -- According to a new survey from The Vitality Group, a member of Discovery Holdings Limited, the vast majority of Americans (82 percent) believe that they alone are responsible for their health.
They also agree that lifestyle choices, such as smoking and exercise, have a direct impact on their healthcare costs. Yet when asked who should pay these healthcare costs, nearly half of Americans (44 percent) believe they should not bear any part of the responsibility of paying for their healthcare.
On the contrary, the majority believe their or their spouse's employer should have some responsibility and nearly half think the government should have some responsibility (59 and 46 percent, respectively.) Only 56 percent think they should shoulder any part of the responsibility themselves.
"These results highlight the root cause of the healthcare crisis our nation is currently grappling with," said Art Carlos, Chief Executive Officer of The Vitality Group. "We Americans, or rather our lifestyles, lie at the heart of rising medical costs and the problem will not be solved until we are required to take personal accountability for the way we choose to live." Consider the facts: -- Chronic diseases account for more than three quarters of the nation's $2.3 trillion medical care costs and a significant share traces to lifestyle factors such as smoking, poor eating habits and the lack of physical activity.(1) -- 70% of all healthcare costs generated in the United States are attributable to preventable risks and unhealthy choices.(2) -- An estimated 66 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. Obesity costs U.S. companies an estimated $13 billion per year.(3) "The only way to stem these escalating healthcare costs is to help people take action to get healthier or insist they pay for the privilege of lifestyle choices that adversely affect the pocketbooks of others," said Carlos.
The Solution is Wellness (If I Don't Have to Pay For It) Wellness programs are rapidly gaining popularity as employers struggle with dramatic healthcare costs increases. (The average Fortune 500 company spends more on health benefits than it earns in profits.(4)) In a study conducted by Hewitt Associates, it was found that two-thirds of employers were moving toward more aggressive wellness and disease management programs for employees. Almost half were offering or planned to offer employees incentives to participate in health initiatives, compared with just 38 percent a year earlier.
The American public is on board too, as long as it doesn't affect their wallet -- when The Vitality Group asked survey respondents about participating in an employer-sponsored wellness program, more than 95 percent said they would participate if they got something out of it - lower healthcare costs, incentives, better health, employer subsidies. Respondents considered the number one benefit of participation in a wellness program to be good health and fitness, followed by cost savings on healthcare.
But, Americans still don't want to pay to get healthy - only four in ten would participate in a wellness program if they had to pay for the program themselves.
And, almost two thirds of Americans felt that some people with conditions which increase the use of healthcare should pay more for healthcare. Only 37 percent felt that conditions or illnesses shouldn't affect how much a person pays for healthcare.
"Despite the fact that people recognize their behavior can impact their healthcare costs, that knowledge obviously isn't enough to motivate them to action, considering 70 percent of all healthcare costs are attributable to preventable risks and unhealthy choices," said Stuart Slutzky, Chief Marketing Officer of The Vitality Group.
"Finding the right wellness program that will motivate them is critically important - they're not all created equally. The best programs provide the tools and motivation to make healthy choices including positive incentives for employees who choose to do the right thing. They are also nondiscriminatory in that their rewards are based on taking positive steps to improve health, no matter where the starting point lies." Programs such as this - like the Vitality health enhancement program from The Vitality Group - have been proven to deliver a positive return on investment in the form of lowered healthcare costs and increases in productivity. The Vitality Group believes so strongly in its model that it will guarantee that claim savings will exceed reward costs - if they don't, The Vitality Group will pay for the excess reward cost.
(1)Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2)Wellness Councils of America and The Center for Health Care Economics (3)Centers for Disease Control (4)US Bureau of Economic Analysis; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CMS; McKinsey Analysis Survey Methodology A series of questions was asked on the CARAVAN(R) omnibus surveys from Opinion Research Corporation.
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted April 10-13, 2008 among a sample of 1,013 adults (501 men and 512 women). Interviews were weighted by four variables: age, sex, geographic region, and race, to ensure reliable and accurate representation of the total adult population. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level is plus or minus three percentage points for the entire sample. Smaller sub-groups will have larger error margins.
SOURCE: The Vitality Group CONTACT: For The Vitality Group Eileen Rochford Office: 773-463-2480 Cell: 312-953-3305 eileenr@theharbingergroup.com
(c) 2008 CNBC, Inc.
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You live by the jelly donut,
You live by the jelly donut, you die by the jelly donut. You live by the government you die by the government. I rarely get a common cold, but I also do not carry health insurance. I think its reasonable for employers to provide affordable health insurance. Socialism is never the answer. Americans that are too lazy to stay healthy and eat nutritiously deserve the side affects. There are emergency situations and viruses and diseases that have been around for centuries in which affordable health care would be the most humane option. Those who rely on the government to feed them, bath them, and nurse them will eventually have to rely on a government that will control all facets of there lives.
Web Developer
www.writetoredress.com
Take Back Your Country!
LOL
That's pretty pathetic. Most people expect someone else to take care of them. Collectivism as its finest. This is why Paul and other libertarians who speak of self-responsibility and opposition to the welfare state can't win yet in America. America still wants a nanny state.
competition
Ron Paul has said to make medical care affordable it has to be competitive. We need the government, big business and pharma out of the medical field. If I only had to pay $40 to see a doctor I wouldn't need a big over priced insurance policy. If there was competition it wouldn't cost hundreds or even thousands for simple procedures. My lifestyle is my business and my health is my concern. But I deserve the same very affordable health care all the damned illegal immigrants seem to be entitled!
Than you have the problem of
Than you have the problem of all the hormones added to the food.
The fact that pesticides cause estrogen production.
Processed food is just plain bad for you.
What else is going on? Much much more.
Is this Kinda Like
No child left behind? LOL.
Just Like the Carbon Tax
". . .insist they pay for the privilege of lifestyle choices that adversely affect the pocketbooks of others," said Carlos."
This is just another way to justify an additional tax. I'm pretty sure the majority of "health" issues are directly related to the crap grown from GMO seeds that are the basis for our foods, coupled with the sterilization, radiation, homagenization, etc. of our foods taking out ALL nutritional value, adding ingredients (like high fructose corn syrup) that our bodies cannot absorb correctly (thus causing an increase in obesity & diabetes), add in the toxins prevalent in the soil, water & air: -what healthy food choices are we suppose to be making? Clean out from top to bottom all these agencies that are suppose to be "protecting" us and our health would improve dramatically!!
Only due to
the legislation that has made it my burden. I wouldn't care what you do with your life if the government didn't place that burden on my back.
Preaching to the choir
In my Health and Human Nutrition classes we talk about this same thing. I get my students to look at the big picture and realize that Americans deserve what they get. Why should I have to pay for their bad habits? We are coming up with all kinds of ideas on how to solve the problem. I, for one, am pretty sick of the attitude.
Healthnut4freedom
"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:5,6
I am not sure I like this.
I am not sure I like this. If you take it to the end, then Americans will be forcefully vaccinated, seatbelted, helmeted, arrested for hamburgers, and smokers may get attacked like some attack gay people--in public and on the streets. Death penalty for alcoholics and cocaine users, not to mention fat people. The more gov't pays for stuff, the more they can regulate it, legislate against it, and shape public opinion. If a smoker gets sick with lung cancer it should even out with those who get sick with genetic diseases, and accident victims. This argument, just sucks, to me, on the face of it, and the ass of it.
People don't like "paying" for other people's hospital bills if they live unhealthily, but do not complain about financing housing bailouts and interventionalist wars, and all sorts of everything else too numerous to even begin listing...SHEESH.