WELLNESS: County on wrong track

What are our elected county commissioners thinking? A Press story recently stated that a new wellness program was presented for consideration that would charge nonparticipating employees more in order to give participants unspecified but suggested monetary incentives. This is not right. How could they even think about making admittedly underpaid county employees pay for such a redundant program?

Safety at work is the employer’s responsibility. Healthy living is good, but it is not the employer’s responsibility. Just as the law states that higher premiums can not be charged to those who have higher medical costs, why should the employer allow the insurer or anyone to charge more based on nonparticipation in some “wellness” program? Next thing the program will want to monitor what the employees eat for lunch or what “unsafe” activities are participated in on their own time. What next?

A second very big red flag is the idea that these programs would or could be offered during the employees’ downtime — that is, lunchtime and breaks — so as not to affect productivity. Lunch and break times were established (after strikes and lawsuits) because the body needs to get away from the work for a period of refreshment through rest (or movement if a sit down job), eating, or other personal activities. Any wellness program that suggests using this time is counterproductive and should/could be illegal. I know a business owner who was once penalized by one of the unions for even speaking to an employee about work during his lunch break.

Alternately offer the program at no cost to any employee before or after working hours (not lunch or breaks) and see just how much participation you get. If a program is really beneficial, it should be offered on the employers time and money. I can’t imagine the county taxpayers would consider this a priority expenditure. The commissioners need to ask, if I were paying for this out of my own or my company’s pocket, would I do it?

Who is LMM Leadership Group? Is LMM Leadership Group related to the insurer or are they some for-profit company offering a bad deal? Save $30,000 a year by “Just Saying No!”

MARCELLA LAYTON

Coeur d’Alene