January 30, 2012
3:33 pm
If you smoke tobacco, you’re not going to be hired for a job by the Baylor Health Care System. For that matter, you don’t need to waste time filling out an employment application form at the Cleveland Clinic either. Both healthcare providers have made it clear that they will not accept smokers within their respective workforces.
In its editorial today, USA Today says this type of policy is wrong. The newspaper argues that employers like Baylor CEO Joel Allison and Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove (both members of the Healthcare Leadership Council) have every right to offer smoking cessation programs to their employees and even to make smokers pay more out of pocket for their workplace-provided health insurance. But, USA Today says, it is improper to penalize a job applicant for practicing a legal habit on their own time.
According to the newspaper’s editorial, “A bit further down (this) road lies hiring based on genetics. In that world, inheriting that shows a predisposition to a costly disease could cost you a job.”
USA Today is wrong, and not just because of its nonsensical comparison of a voluntary activity like smoking to an individual’s genetic makeup.
Today’s healthcare providers are expected not only to provide excellent care for the patients, but also to encourage wellness, disease prevention and healthy behaviors among all individuals they have the ability to influence. As Dr. Paul Terpeluk of the Cleveland Clinic said in his “opposing view” in USA Today, “We have a unique perspective on the burden of chronic disease. We not only treat disease, but we also play a vital role in educating patients and employees about lifestyle choices. It is only right to practice what we preach.”
There’s also a significant economic issue involved here. When an employer, particularly one who provides health coverage, hires an individual, they are assuming the burden of his or her healthcare costs. An individual may smoke on their own time, but the employer winds up footing much of the bill for the chronic illnesses associated with smoking. Should an employer be allowed to consider the increased health costs, absenteeism and loss of productivity associated with a voluntary, unhealthy behavior like smoking? It’s hard to argue that they shouldn’t.
And in an environment in which five percent of the population is responsible for 50 percent of our healthcare costs, this is a concern that goes well beyond Baylor and the Cleveland Clinic.
I know both Joel Allison and Toby Cosgrove. They are both gentlemen who have dedicated their lives and careers to providing better health to their fellow citizens. Their no-smoking policies are neither mean-spirited nor discriminatory. Rather, they are intended to make a vitally-needed statement about wellness and healthy living both within and outside the confines of their respective institutions.
December 06, 2011
12:53 pm
Vermont is number one. Mississippi is number 50. But, truth be told, every single state has reason for concern.
The United Health Foundation has issued its annual “America’s Health Rankings” report, showing a state-by-state ranking in overall population health. The striking news this year was not that the New England states occupied six of the top 10 positions, but that the nation as a whole is not faring well.
The United report card showed zero overall improvement in America’s health status over the past year. That’s the first time in two decades that our health has showed no upward mobility whatsoever. In fact, over the past decade, the rate of improvement in the nation’s health status is 69 percent less than it was in the 1990s.
It doesn’t take much analyzing to find out the reason. Obesity is up considerably and diabetes cases are escalating in number. This concurs with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been telling us about chronic disease trends.
As Reed Tuckson of the United Health Foundation board said, the United States is facing a “tsunami of preventable illness.”
The good news is that there are initiatives being developed throughout the country to keep communities and workforces in better health and prevent the onset of chronic disease. The Healthcare Leadership Council has chronicled a number of these in its HLC Wellness Compendium. We shared this document with key staff members on Capitol Hill at a briefing last week.
The better news will occur when we see policymakers taking these successful examples and finding ways to extrapolate them to help larger populations.
We can still hope that, in the future, when states are competing for placement on the United rankings, that the entire competition will be taking place on a higher plane of healthiness.
February 14, 2010
11:09 am
Expectant and new mothers now have access to a tool to help keep themselves and their babies healthy – free informational tips sent to their cell phones.
Recently, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) launched Text4baby, a free mobile information service designed to promote maternal and child health. Text4baby provides pregnant women and new moms with information they need to take care of their health and give their babies the best possible start in life. Women who sign up for the service by texting BABY (or BEBE for Spanish) to 511411 will receive free SMS text messages each week, timed to their due date or baby’s date of birth. Since the launch, over 10,000 women from all 50 states have been registered for the program.
According to its sponsors, the text4baby campaign is the first free, health education program in the U.S. to utilize mobile phones. Among the sponsors are three Healthcare Leadership Council members: Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, and WellPoint.
I would like to commend these three organizations for taking part in such an innovative health outreach program.
October 26, 2009
8:24 am
An upcoming edition of the British medical journal The Lancet will feature the results of research into a new diabetes drug that is demonstrating significant progress in helping obese patients lose weight and reduce their blood pressure.
The drug liraglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk, has been the subject of testing by the department of human nutrition at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Weight loss of more than five percent, over a 20-week timeframe, occurred in 76 percent of the patients taking the drug. Additional studies are now needed to investigate the long-term benefits and risks of the medications, the study’s authors wrote.
Pharmaceutical progress in this arena is critical in the drive to boost societal health and control healthcare costs. Almost 75 cents of every healthcare dollar is spent to fight chronic disease, with obesity being a leading driver of chronic illnesses like diabetes, diabetes and heart disease. The Lancet study noted that about half of Europeans and two-thirds of U.S. citizens are currently overweight. Read more
June 30, 2009
10:28 am
I want to thank WPTF Radio of Raleigh, NC for inviting me on the air yesterday morning to discuss health reform. It was a good opportunity to talk about the possible impact on physicians, hospitals and patients if Medicare payment rates are expanded to cover a significantly larger portion of the population. You can listen to the interview here.
CATEGORIES: