Looks like CVS is acting responsibly
Employees at retail giant CVS Caremark will have to pay a hefty $600-a-year penalty for not disclosing their weight and other personal health data to the company’s benefits firm, under a new health policy that many prominent patient rights advocates are calling invasive. […]
But if workers refuse the screening, they will be forced to pay the $600 annual penalty. The company will collect the fines by tacking on an additional $50 each month to the existing cost of the company’s health insurance program.
Employees have until May 1 to submit to the company-sponsored wellness review.
The company also revised their health policy to warn smokers that they must try to quit.
“You must either be tobacco-free by May 1, 2014 or participate in the WebMD tobacco cessation program,” the company wrote to employees, NBC’s TODAY reported.
While I understand why people recoil at how invasive and Nanny-like this feels — and it is — what the hell did you expect?
Making health insurance the responsibility of employers was bad enough, but with ObamaCare already being felt with more of the same on the horizon, we have given up any say-so in what health-related information we pass on to insurers.
If your employer was required to provide auto insurance for all employees, would anyone think they would not be required to report their driving history?
At least when you’re a free agent in the marketplace to obtain insurance individually, you can make choices (and pay for them) based on what you want to put up with.
Making medical care “a right” not only costs you your treasure, but your sovereignty.
Moooooooo
They can take mine off my driver license. Can I help it if they thought the number I said was in pounds instead of kilograms?
“Usually about 45 minutes to an hour, but sometimes they overbook and it can be two hours. Why do you want to know how long I have to wait at the doctor’s office?”
Next up, employees will be required to produce (weekly) their used dental floss for microscopic inspection. Because someone cares. That means they’re beloved, we can be certain. And besides, the country needs jobs.
Because it’s not your employer’s job to invade your privacy
it’s your government’s!
[…] CVS demands employees report body weight or face penalty. And why not? [Darleen Click] | protein wis… […]
I was told this sort of thing wasn’t going to happen. Promised, even. I’m certain that this whole story is just some fable cooked up by you visigothy Hobbits. That’s the only possible explanation!
I mean, seriously, who does the CEO of this company think he is, Kathleen Sibelius?
Sumbitch prolly don’t even have bodyguards, much less a private army with 2 billion rounds in the armory…
Moo? Baa…
La la la
This is what losing your liberty looks like.
Sorta, Lee. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to work for CVS Caremark.
Once the state steps in to make things “fair” for everyone….
I don’t imagine the practice will stop with CVS.
This will become near universal before long I’m thinking, and is only the start of many coming unintended (or at least un-advertised) consequences to obamacare.
Of course if won’t. In fact, it’ll probably get worse.
The evidence is to be found in Britain’s NHS.
I think other risks should be taken into account. No motorcycles or bicycles to work. No commuting by freeway. No skiing or snowboarding. Stay away from the ocean and other large bodies of water. . .
That was published in 1978. Still don’t know whether to be surprised that it really came true, or surprised that it took as long as it did. Regardless, you can rest assured that there will always be some of us, outside the cities, enjoying our beer and butter and bacon and bratwurst. We’ll probably burn brush and leaves right out in the open, when we’re not busy playing with our fast cars, or out on the lake seeing if we can pull up our lost firearms with our fishing lines.
And in the winter, we’ll be on the lake on our snowmobiles, seeing how fast they can go.
Just watch.
…
*or pick some random date during Obama’s 3rd term…
Tobacco free first I think.
Round about Obama’s fourth term, Marijuana use will be mandatory.
At least until MegaPharmCorp perfects Soma.
True story: my lovely bride is terrified to go out on frozen lakes. She grew up where the winters aren’t that cold, and had it drilled into her from the time she was a toddler that the ice is never, ever safe and she will definitely fall through it and freeze to death. I drove her out a mile or two on Mille Lacs and I thought she was going to have a coronary.
But put her on a snowmobile and tell her that she can do 60 or 70 mph over a frozen lake? The adrenaline junkie beats the self-preservation nanny every single time.
This is my 3rd tobacco free day.
And you are all ugly, stupid, ridiculous people that should shut up and commit yourselves to the nearest asylum.
Now kindly go fuck yourselves.
I was on a borrowed Yamaha 1000. It went between 96 and 104, the number never steadied.
you gotta future @ cvs
Lee, go to the store, not CVS, and buy a big package of gum. Nicorette gum.
Or you can tough it out since after 72 hours it’s psychological.
I’ll cop to being stupid and ridiculous at times, but ugly? You and the missus may have talked yourselves out of a housewarming present there, mister. j/k
Congrats on the three days.
Don’t do the gum, its a trick, you just get addicted to the gum.
Tough it out.
“Now kindly go fuck yourselves.”
No, I have a head ache. I have to settle for cuddling myself.
Unless you’re the president of a company I once worked for, and used gum, patches, and the occasional cigarette all at once….
I’m addicted to bottled Frappachino drinks. It’s like cold milk and coffee and vanilla all at the same time. Bastards.
Dude I used to hang with got all caught up in that stuff. Last time I saw him he had two or three patches on, a big old wad of gum and was still chain smoking. Dude was vibrating like a tuning fork.
Well, Lee, I quit cold turkey in 2003. The first 10 days sucked hard, but after that I never looked back.
(beemoe’s right about the gum: it’s almost useless.)
Take up cigars instead.
when frappuccinos first came out I couldn’t stop
but at the end of the day they’re just not a good value and just knowing that they’re easy enough to make at home for pennies on the dollar helped me kick em…. until Java Monsters came along
then I just had to make a new year’s resolution about those
Neil Boortz used to go on these vicious rants about what an awful, stupid habit smoking was and what kind of a spineless retard you had to be to not just quit. That and the chronic coughing and breathing issues is what I used for motivation.
Usually a case of bronchitis has caused me to quit.
I like smoking, though. It or something else is agonna kill me one of these days.
K, past the 72 hour mark, it’s supposed to be all down hill from here. It hasn’t really been that bad.
That Boortz guy sounds like an asshole ignoramus though. Everyone knows smoking is awesome and cool. It’s right up there with drinking and fast cars. Of course it’s dangerous, almost all awesome cool stuff is.
My motivation is threefold. First, it’s dangerous, and I’m not young anymore. Two, it’s gotten stupid expensive, and three, ever since they went to the new paper that is supposed to cut down on fires, it’s become more of a pain in the ass to smoke, and messy. Cigs just don’t burn right anymore, and there is no way to contain all the fly ash.
Boortz has a real hard-on about smokers, although I’m not sure why exactly. He likes to brag it up about his various expensive hobbies. He has a plane with a heads-up display, for instance. He has jet-skis and SCUBA gear. He plays golf and carries a firearm.
He’s a lawyer, too. Maybe that’s his motivation.
Unless you’re the president of a company I once worked for, and used gum, patches, and the occasional cigarette all at once….
In Thank You For Smoking, the protagonist gets grabbed and his captors put nicotine patches over every square inch of his body, ostensibly trying to OD him on nicotine. My opinion was that a lot of smokers read that section and said “Hey, now THERE’S an idea…”