CVS Asks Workers to Report Weight...
- Thread starter PsyOps
- Start date
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Disagree. This is a company-provided benefit to the employees, and carries costs for the company, which they have a legitimate interest in lowering. They don't have to provide it at all (at least in other than an intrusive Socialist government nanny state they wouldn't) and the employees could/can buy their own or do without. And if the costs are shared between the employer and employee, those employees more likely to (or who demonstrably do) use more of the benefit should pay more than those who do not (although those who do not should have, as individuals, the option to subsidize the others if they so choose.) Their (the employees and "Dr." Peel) complaints are just more whining, wanting someone else to be forced to pay for or give them something.
Now, when our instrusive Socialist government nanny state forces employers to provide insurance, mandates what must be in that insurance, eliminates any or all freedom of choice for employer, employees, & insurance provider, and along the way steals from them all to "redistribute" to others and support their own bureaucracy, that reeks of Obamacare (and many other programs!)
bcp
In My Opinion
This is only the start. Just wait.
get a seatbelt or speeding ticket? premium goes up
smoke? up it goes
get caught buying adult type beverages, up again.
Oh, you DRIVE to work, up
You own a hand gun? raise the rates again.
and of course the mandatory doctor visits to look for any signs that you are not living healthy by lawful standards.. this will naturally be an affirmative action doctor that part times as a crack whore.
migtig
aka Mrs. Giant
Are you living under a rock? ObamaCare mandates what should be in "health" insurance now. Have you not heard of the Hobby Lobby issue? Or the Catholic lawsuits? Or any of the other lawsuits against ObamaCare, because of what is mandated in it?
Lurk
Happy Creepy Ass Cracka
This would be a legit argument if CVS also asked for family history, smoking history, whether or not they wear seat belts in the car, and whether there's a firearm in the home. But the apparently only want protected individual health information which is protected by statute from exposure.
[posted before I read bcp's post]
My Employer offers a 20% discount on premiums for Bio Metric Screening
weight
blood draw - check cholesterol
do you smoke ?
then some suggestions on getting healthy .... and then you get nagged with phone calles the next 6 months
MarieB
New Member
Disagree
If the company pays a portion of your insurance, then that is part of your salary package.
bcp
In My Opinion
nobody reads my posts.
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Of course I have; that's my point. The government intrudes, where it has no legitimate basis to involve itself, in what should be private business arrangements between employers and employees (and in this particular example insurance providers.) Here, the obese and/or diabetic CVS employees want the government to interfere for them so they, who as a group would be expected to be larger "consumers" of health care, don't have to a) identify their conditions so the employer and insurer can quantify their risks (they're both businesses, not charities) or b) pay more as an alternate option.
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Is it somehow illegitimate if they (CVS) choose not to consider these other factors? Assuming of course a private arrangement where the government does not interfere where it has no business (a.k.a., my fantasy land)?
BTW, I try to always read bcp's posts.
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PsyOps
Pixelated
But it's voluntary, not mandatory.
PsyOps
Pixelated
Don’t you find it a little coincidental that all of this happens after the passage of Obamacare?
Does doctor-patient confidentiality have no legitimate meaning anymore? In fact, I thought it was the law. Whether they can go buy their or not isn’t the point. This is private medical information CVS has no right demanding.
But why does it appear they are doing this now? In preparation for the higher taxes they will have to pay. This year taxes will increase for itemized medical expenses, privately-sponsored retiree prescription-drug coverage, medical devices, and flexible spending accounts. In 2014 the employer mandate kicks in. Companies with 50 or more employees will be required to provide health insurance or be fined; another expense they have to account for. Another increase in cost to insurers is the cut in deductables: $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families, down from $6,050 and $12,100.
I’m not the least bit fooled that insurers and employers aren’t preparing for these massive costs levied on them from Obamacare.
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Sure it is, and if their portion plus your portion is inadequate because there are too many employees with (insert condition here), who's responsible for the difference, and in what proportion? Seems to me this is what CVS is trying to address, and in a fashion where a higher risk pool pays more, but that pool wants to protect itself from paying more.
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
Absolutely agree; this is the (real world) cost I say they have an interest in lowering. And it has been being added to for decades by other instances of illegitimate government involvement and mandates. But their (CVS') response in trying to address this cost is not, AFAIK, a directive from the Feds. It does not reek of Obamacare; it is one of their responses to the reek of Obamacare (and I believe it really does reek). To me it seems a reasonable business approach, one which could likely also have come about had the "cost" resulted from an actual free market rather than from one skewed, hacked, corrupted, manipulated, interfered with and bastardized by the government.
PsyOps
Pixelated
Define higher risk. So, what’s next? What about speeders? What about those who like to climb mountains without a rope? What about those who like to participate in MMA in their spare time? What about those that have woodworking as their hobby and work around really dangerous machinery?
But this is nothing more than playing ‘Minority Report’ practices – punishing people before they even have a problem: “Submit to this so we can make sure you’re not a higher risk”. So one person is a smoker and overweight, nothing goes wrong with them, and they jack his rates up; while another person is a mountain climber and just snapped their neck in a fall off a cliff, and their rates remain low. :shrug:
And it’s still private medical information they are demanding. It’s not any more CVS’s business to ask for it than it is the government’s.
PsyOps
Pixelated
I had to look up ‘AFAIK’
You sort of contradicted yourself. First you agreed that they are doing this to prepare for the imminent cost increases of Obamacare, then denied that this reeks of Obamacare. I wasn’t trying to imply that this was in response to some mandate of Obamacare. It’s just like why businesses aren’t hiring and why they are hoarding their cash away. They’re doing it to prepare to pay the higher taxes Obama intends to levy on them. The big companies aren’t stupid when it comes to Obamacare. They know it’s going to crunch them big time and they are going to stuff as much cash into their pockets as they can before the government kicks in all their rules under Obamacare that will cause them to lose money.
But if you think it’s reasonable to calculate risk to determine cost, then they better make a really long list of risks that humans put themselves in every day. More people go to the hospital due to poor safety precautions than heart disease or obesity-related problems.
depends ........ do you want the 20% discount
it is like the CVS Penalty - in reverse
for now the Bio Metric Screening is still vol. I expect it to become manditoy, or your rates will go up
oh and if you wanted the screening this yr, spouses WERE Manditory
jrt_ms1995
Well-Known Member
I had to look up ‘AFAIK’
You sort of contradicted yourself. First you agreed that they are doing this to prepare for the imminent cost increases of Obamacare, then denied that this reeks of Obamacare. I wasn’t trying to imply that this was in response to some mandate of Obamacare. It’s just like why businesses aren’t hiring and why they are hoarding their cash away. They’re doing it to prepare to pay the higher taxes Obama intends to levy on them. The big companies aren’t stupid when it comes to Obamacare. They know it’s going to crunch them big time and they are going to stuff as much cash into their pockets as they can before the government kicks in all their rules under Obamacare that will cause them to lose money.
But if you think it’s reasonable to calculate risk to determine cost, then they better make a really long list of risks that humans put themselves in every day. More people go to the hospital due to poor safety precautions than heart disease or obesity-related problems.
I think that we can agree that we sort of agree, but we can't come up with words expressive of our agreement? Other than, maybe, government interference = bad news (regardless of which side they're interfering for at this particular moment)?
Meanwhile, more "server not available", so off to lunch.