If employees of CVS want to hang onto their health insurance, they’re going to have to pony up personal information about their health or face paying as much as $600 more a year for health insurance.
CBS San Francisco is reporting that CVS has announced to workers across the nation that they are implementing a new policy called “A Plan for Health” that will offer employees rewards or penalties for the state of their health.
“Among the measures, employees must report their weight, body fat, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels,” CBS reports. “Workers must also be tobacco free or enroll in an addiction program by next year.”
Those who refuse to comply will have to pay $50 more for health coverage each month, which will amount to $600 more a year.
Lawyers are already lining up to fight the policy. “(CVS Executives) better get some pretty good legal counsel and decide whether your policy is really legal, because the policy as announced is not legal,” Richard Schramm, a Bay Area employment lawyer, told KPIX 5.
“If we granted that right to employers, employers could tell employees who to date, who to see, what kinds of foods to eat, what to drink, all kinds of behavior off site could be controlled. And that’s absolutely not the law in California,” he said.
Others disagree, such as Joshua Kersey, a Tampa Bay labor attorney, who said employee wellness plans are perfectly legal and have held up in court. With ObamaCare looming in 2014, these kinds of programs will become much more common as employers search for ways to cut costs.
“The more money it’s going to save the employer, the more incentive the employer has to affect these types of programs,” he told Fox News.
Experts tend to agree, some of whom have already experienced the same scenario in their places of employment.
“I received a letter from my employer at the hospital stating that I needed to see a physician in the human resources department, or I would be forced to pay a penalty of $50 extra each month,” said Dr. Manny Alvarez of Fox News. “The reason this is happening is because companies are desperate to try to find ways to cut costs, or perhaps, disqualify some employees from standard policies and recommend they instead look for coverage through a public exchange.”
He adds: “In my opinion, this is fundamentally wrong. It takes away the privacy of the individual, and it’s a form of discrimination. . . . Yes, people should lose weight, eat healthier, stop smoking and incorporate exercise into their daily routine – we’ve been telling them that for years. But to force them by making them pay, knowing full-well that financial penalties could compromise an individual’s ability to provide for their family is just plain wrong.
“Unfortunately, I know this will one day be the norm in our country as we watch our freedoms disappear.”
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