Allowing employees with healthy habits to pay less for health insurance sounds like a good idea, until you think about it.
Do you really want to tell your employer everything about your private life that might affect your health? Telling him you smoke may not be a problem; people can already see you with a cigarette in your hand. But do you want to tell your boss how many beers you had last weekend (and every other day)? What about your sex life? People with many sexual partners have much more risk of contracting STDs than those who are monogamous. Allowing your employer to ask about behavior that affects your health is like giving him a picture window into your private life.
Allowing employers to impose financial penalties on those with unhealthy habits is a very dangerous precedent. A century ago, employers like Henry Ford and John B. Stetson imposed codes of conduct on employees’ private lives. A member of Ford’s “sociology department” (i.e. private police force) might show up at your door at any time of day (or night) and insist on being admitted. If you were drinking, playing cards for money, or had someone in the bedroom that you weren’t married to, you lost your job. Ford and Stetson’s company towns were among the most totalitarian societies in human history.
Today’s employers may have different goals, but the end result is the same. Virtually everything you do in your private life affects your health. Alcohol, tobacco, junk food, and red meat are all bad for you. Skiing, scuba diving, and even riding a bicycle to work increase your risk of injury.
If we allow employers to control off-duty behavior in the name of health, you can kiss your private life goodbye.
NPR.org: Patient Advocates Fear Bias In Wellness Incentives
(Lewis Maltby is the author of Can They Do That?: Retaking Our Fundamental Rights in the Workplace, to be published by Portfolio on Dec. 31, 2009.)
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