Deductions urged for companies with wellness programs - under Clinton health care reform plan

Business & Health, Oct, 1993

President Clinton should include employer deductions for worksite health promotion and disease prevention programs in his health reform plans, a coalition of trade associations and business groups has urged. The group, The National Wellness Network, represents 2,200 U.S. employers, including 200 Fortune 500 corporations.

The coalition says that without such deductions many employers would almost certainly drop their prevention and wellness programs, especially if they are compelled to insure workers through purchasing alliances. "It would be a costly tragedy if the administration's plan removed the incentives for employers to keep their workers healthy," says William Whitmer, president and CEO of Wellness South, a wellness consulting company in Birmingham, Ala., and coordinator of the Worksite Health Promotion Alliance, a coalition of organizations and companies representing 110 million members of the American workforce.

The coalition has not developed a specific plan for how such a deduction would work or be implemented, however. At a news conference, Whitmer and Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, a think-tank for evaluating emerging technologies in Washington, said one option was to require employers who offer a wellness program a break on the amount they would have to pay as a percentage of payroll for health insurance.

The administration is expected to propose that large employers pay no more than 7.9% of payroll for health coverage, and small business a lesser amount starting at 3.5% of payroll.

Whitmer and Rifkin suggested that a large company with a wellness program might pay no more than 5% to 7% of payroll, for example. But both acknowledged that gauging who would qualify for such breaks would pose administrative problems. "We don't know yet how best to do it," says Whitmer. "But we think it has to be a part of the plan."

Other groups joining in a letter to the president urging the deduction in his reform plan include the Wellness Councils of America, in Omaha Neb., representing 2,100 employers with 2 million workers; the Association for Worksite Health Promotion, Northbrook, Ill., an association of 3,200 health promotion professionals; and the The National Wellness Network, Washington, a group representing 10 businesses.