By The Wall Street Journal
Nearly half of U.S. employers include spouses in wellness programs, up from roughly 10% five years ago. But the aggressive pursuit of spouses is "very unusual." Such Michigan employer wellness programs seek to cut health-care costs by altering lifestyles and identifying diseases early.
It generally costs employers more to insure spouses' health than workers, concludes an analysis of 21 companies'. At those companies, spouses' health-care costs averaged $3,738 annually, 9.7% more than employees'.
The effect is most pronounced at companies where most workers are men under age 50. Women use more medical services because they seem to be much more attuned to their bodies.
Elsewhere, one company recently extended an insurance-premium rebate to spouses who join employees in its wellness program. People are more likely to lose weight and stop smoking when they are "making the changes with their spouses. Other companies require spouses to be screened regularly, or lose coverage.
They chose a voluntary approach. So far, roughly 22% of its 3,344 U.S. spouses and domestic partners have been screened, including some who use health-care plans from their own employers. "You can only change lifestyle and behavior when employees and their spouses really want to do it, not because the company is forcing them.
U.S. staffers collect as much as $250 a year for taking part in annual health-risk assessments, exercise classes and similar wellness activities. When officials distributed T-shirts to introduce the program in 1998, obesity was so widespread that they ordered many sized XXXL.
In 2007, company executives discovered that spouses' average medical claims the prior year had exceeded employees' by $728, or almost 30%. When the higher costs persisted, executives decided to buy and outfit a 40-foot RV to screen spouses and workers. The company wrote all U.S. employees in January to tout the Mobile Wellness Unit.
Some screenings uncovered serious potential problems. An Omaha man who was on his wife's employer wellness program learned he had extremely high level of fats called triglycerides, a condition linked to diabetes. The 43-year-old assembly-line worker, who asked not to be named, said he last had a physical during high school.
Companies say they won't reject spouses for insurance coverage if the screenings turn up serious health problems.
