Example Of Essay On The Rising Cost Of Healthcare Premiums

As the company’s president, I want to address one of our concerns which include our increasing payments to insurance companies due to the rising cost of health care premiums. Unfortunately, the problem is caused by controllable individual level issues like obesity and high blood pressure. To address this, the management has agreed the additional payment of affected workers to cater for their medical expenses. Arguably, workers do not fully utilize the facilities and privileges provided by the company. This can be supported by the fact that despite the provision of free wellness programs, there is still continually registered low turnout implying that the workers are not exerting effort to improve themselves. Thus, the extra cost is justified and timely.
On the other hand, to prevent further escalation of chronic diseases, the management has decided that all workers are required to provide their health information. Relevant information include body mass index, weight, and blood-sugar level. Through this, the company hopes that the workers change their behavior by compelling them to observe health lifestyles.
Consequently, workers who maintain health body weight will be rewarded while those who gain weight will face necessary deductions. The management found the need to increase the health payments of workers with unhealthy lifestyle because of the data stating that the cost of maintaining each worker per year is expected to rise to $12,136 per year.
Workers who are chronically ill will also need to bear the extra cost of their insurance because of the adequate interventions made available by the company to them. The intervention presented by the company include free screening sessions which also received low turnout. In this case, workers who evade the screening exercise will have to pay the additional cost that would have been prevented through screening. Similarly, the management will deny promotions of workers for evading screening and other health care-related exercises. In addition, the management has decided to reward workers who meet all health standards for glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol.
As the president of the company, I believe that the increase in the premium contribution has been justified because we have already provided healthier foods that workers are not willingly eating. Also, the company provided fitness centers and subsidized gym membership to encourage workers to maintain a healthy lifestyle. However, the purposes of establishing these are in vain, implying the need to end the soft approaches. Thus, increasing individual contributions is a disincentive to leading an unhealthy lifestyle.
According to the law, rewards or penalties are permissible as long as it does not exceed 20 percent of the employee’s health coverage. Also, the law specified that the boss must offer options like wellness centers and screening for the reward or penalty to apply. In our case, all of the facilities and screening services have been offered but workers still miss to maintain healthy lifestyles implying the need for the increase of health insurance.
In conclusion, the new directives are not aligned towards punishing or discriminating workers but in inspiring them to maintain a healthy lifestyle for maximum productivity.