A growing number of companies have been encouraging workers to voluntarily improve their health to control escalating insurance costs. Too few are signing up or showing signs of improvement so now more employers are trying a different strategy - they're replacing the carrot with a stick and raising costs for workers who can't seem to lower their cholesterol or tackle obesity. They're also coming down hard on smokers. For example, Wal-Mart says that starting in 2012 it will charge tobacco users higher premiums but also offer free smoking cessation programs. Overall, the use of penalties is expected to climb in 2012 to almost 40 percent of large and mid-sized companies, up from 19 percent this year and only 8 percent in 2009, according to an October survey by consulting firm Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health. "Nothing else has worked to control health trends," says LuAnn Heinen, vice president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers on health and benefits issues.
Reuters, October 21, 2011, Science Daily, http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/us_penalties
