The Safeway way of health care
.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:
I’m a retired 61-year-old furniture salesman. And except for a bullet wound (that’s a great story) and the delivery of our four children, my wife and I have never needed a doctor’s help. We eat right, don’t smoke (we love red wine, though), exercise and take yoga classes once a week. Our three grown children and their families follow a similar regimen and we are all as healthy as a herd of stallions. We all see a doctor once a year for a physical, but we still have to pay through the nose for health insurance. So when I see people who are grossly overweight, who smoke, have poor hygiene or pig out on junk food, I want to walk up to them and give them a dressing down because they’re pushing up our insurance premiums. Our health is important to us. And we think if more people took responsibility for their health, the costs of insurance would fall tremendously.
C.C.: Joliet, Ill.
Dear C.C.:
One of the disturbing characteristics of Americans is that many of us are becoming increasingly reluctant to take responsibility for our own actions. We fail to understand that all the privileges and rights to which we claim entitlement also require maturity, personal responsibility and a modicum of common sense if we wish to enjoy them. The world laughs at us because we have so many lawyers mucking up the system because everybody else wants to put the blame on everybody else. Now we have a new class of lawyers – health-care lawyers — with whom we must contend.
I’m not sure if health care is a right or a privilege, but I’m sure as sunshine that most Americans believe it’s a right. And our failure to take personal responsibility for our health is one of the major reasons health-care costs consume 26 percent of our gross domestic product, up from just 8 percent 20 years ago.
I have a close friend who is a minor big shot at Safeway Inc. (SWY-$22.91), a 195,000-employee, $41 billion revenue supermarket chain. (Safeway, by the way, is a good issue to own for a potential 30 percent return in the next 18 months). And he tells me that SWY is self-insured. In 2005, the company designed a plan, the costs of which (including yearly plan improvements) have remained flat in the past four years, while the plans of most American employers have increased about 41 percent in that same time frame.
Safeway’s plan capitalizes on two givens: (1) About 71 percent of all health-care costs are a result of personal choices and behaviors. (2) Some 74 percent of all health-care costs derive from four chronic conditions: cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. Now, the American Medical Association (AMA) will tell you, and so will every doctor worth his or her diploma, that 80 percent of cardiovascular disease and diabetes is preventable. And the AMA, as well as the docs, also will tell you that 60 percent of cancers and 90 percent of obesity are preventable.
SWY employees, like employees at other corporations, pay a portion of their health-care premiums. However, the significant difference between Safeway and Boeing, AT&T or Exxon is that SWY employees have huge differences in premiums reflecting each family’s differences in health behaviors, or should I say “familial health responsibilities.” All employees are tested for cardio health, obesity, cancer and diabetes, and earn discounts from their base premium level for each test they pass. If all four tests are passed, premiums are reduced by $800 for individuals and $1,600 for families. If one fails a test, it can be taken again the following year. And if one makes good progress, say, on obesity, the company gives the employee a refund equal to the premium difference established at the beginning of the year. That’s real fair.
In the process, many Safeway employees lost weight, stopped smoking (extra reward for that), lowered their blood pressure, lowered their cholesterol levels, began to exercise frequently, improved their eating habits and enjoy better health. And far fewer SWY employees call in sick than prior to this program. As a result, Safeway employees pay 40 percent less in health-care premiums than the employees at Bank of America, Walgreen’s, Ford, Procter & Gamble, etc.
This clearly shows if Americans will take responsibility for their health care, the costs can be contained.
Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, Fla. 33775 or e-mail him at mjberko@yahoo.com. © 2010 Creators.Com
Trending News
