Earlier this year, a Fortune 1000 company at which I am employed sent an innocent-looking email, inviting the associates to attend a "company-paid" biometric health screening and assessment. It seems that they are quite concerned about the health status of their employees and out of the goodness of their hearts, they decided to help us help ourselves.
The biometric health screening was defined as:
"...a short health examination that indicates your risk for certain diseases and medical conditions. This information is obtained in the strictest of confidence to help you understand your health risks so you and your physician can take appropriate action regarding your health. The screening is supplemental to the care received from your physicians, and we encourage you to share the results with them, if you choose."
But the examination does not end there. A further physical examination is performed during which:
"..a trained health screener will obtain certain body measurements and a small blood sample by a finger stick. The data collected will include systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL (good) cholesterol, ratio of total cholesterol to HDL and glucose. Following the test, you will immediately receive your results and two to three minutes of counseling."
The email goes on to assure us that our personal information will NOT (their emphasis) be shared on an individual level within the company. The company will, however receive the aggregate results, which will ostensibly be used for "developing strategies to improving the overall health of the general employee population."
Sounds great so far right? What could be wrong with the company wanting to improve the health of its employees right?
So after the carrot comes the stick:
"We want to remind you that if you do not complete a Health Assessment and a biometric screening either through the onsite process or with your physician in 2012, you will pay higher health care premiums in 2013 than those how have completed these healthy actions."
So it has come to this: complete the biometric screenings or else it will cost you. Why such a heavy-handed tactic, if there is supposed no attention paid to the individual numbers, that these results are only used to report aggregate results?
Oh, I see, the personal information will not be shared within the company. Nice little loophole there. So exactly WHO will my company be sharing MY PERSONAL biometric screening data with, then? And why is it so important to do this that it is necessary to wield the threat of higher premiums in order to enforce these actions?
Obviously, the health insurance contracts they have signed compel these actions. So the likely recipient of MY PERSONAL biometric screening data would would be the health insurance company.
Fortunately for my personal situation, I do not purchase health insurance through my company (I am on my wife's policy).
But where does it end? Say for the sake of argument that the insurance premiums are not a sufficient stick to force these screenings. Is the next step to make my employment contingent upon completing a health assessment? Given how comfortable we all seem to have gotten with drug screening as a contingency for virtually any job in the corporate world, such a possibility doesn't seem so far fetched.
Welcome to the post-Affordable Care Act world. Unlimited possibilities for forced compliance with whatever our corporate masters deem to be a desirable lifestyle.
No comments:
Post a Comment