Live Right, Save More

[Welcome Industry Radar readers!]

The Senate want's you to be healthy and promising to cut your health insurance premiums in half if you comply.

Workers who quit smoking, lose weight, and eat right could have their health insurance premiums cut by as much as half, possibly saving them thousands of dollars per year, under a measure inserted with little notice this week into the Senate healthcare overhaul bill.

Cutting premiums in half is fantasy.

“Money talks,’’ Senator Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who helped broker the deal reached Monday night, said in an interview. “People react to incentives that involve cash.’’

This is true that money talks, but try getting folks to stay on the program. And who is going to monitor them?

Will big brother send a case worker to your home to make sure you don't have Moon Pies in the cupboard and that your running shoes actually show some wear?

Previous measures aimed at convincing Americans to get in shape and lead healthier lifestyles have had mixed success. While the smoking rate has dropped dramatically in recent decades, the obesity rate has doubled since 1987, according to Ken Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University. If the country could return obesity levels to the 1987 rate, it could save $225 billion per year, going a long way to paying for other measures in the healthcare bill, Thorpe said.

According to my driver's license I do weigh what I did in 1987. Doesn't that count?

Of course my hair was black and I had more of it back then.

That is the kind of change I can believe in.