Globe is a sideshow to a certain extent.
"Many employers, insurers, and Internet programs dangle dollars to try to change bad habits like smoking or not exercising, but most studies have found this does not work very well or for very long. The new study, done with Mayo Clinic employees, succeeded because it had a mix of carrots and sticks."
Oh, I'm sorry, readers.
Hope that doesn't ruin the front-page fun and propaganda for you:
"Harvard Pilgrim offers cash rewards for eating well; Program for its 1,200 workers launched in April" by Priyanka Dayal McCluskey | Globe Staff June 20, 2014
When Laura Smith grocery shops, it is almost as if someone is watching her. And there is some truth to that.
To make a bad choice -- say potato chips, or other fatty snacks -- will be reported as points against her. But if she buys healthy foods, like fresh produce and whole grains, she gains points. This is all automatically tallied at the register as her food is scanned.
It’s not that someone is spying, unbidden, on Smith. She has willingly joined an employer-sponsored program that pays her $20 a month to shop healthy -- “an incentive to continue doing what I want to do in the first place,” she says.
It should be done for its own reasons, eat local.
Eventually, more than 1 million people across New England may have the same option.
The cash incentives are a new perk that Harvard Pilgrim launched for its 1,200 workers in April and plans to introduce to employer health plans later this year.
The company, which insures 1.2 million people through 20,000 employers, will be the first insurer in the state and among the first in the country to offer a benefit that links cash rewards with healthy grocery shopping.
As long as it is some corporate conglomerate that mislabels it for sale with tricky and splashy packaging.
“We believe health insurance can be used as a proactive and supportive tool to change culture, to change behavior,” Eric Schultz, Harvard Pilgrim’s chief executive.
He likes Cap’n Crunch cereal and pudding, or so I am told.
Btw, I'm wary of that kind of talk now, especially coming from an agenda-pu$hing pre$$.
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The program doesn’t rely on the honor system; grocery purchases are tracked electronically when participants scan loyalty cards at the checkout counters at Shaw’s, Stop and Shop, Roche Brothers, Hannaford or Wegmans stores.
See: Wegman's Grocery Gamble
Probably your best choice.
More than one-third of Harvard Pilgrim’s employees are participating, and more than 65 percent of their shopping trips have scored high enough to get the cash rewards.
The initiative is an expansion of so-called wellness programs that employers around the country are adopting as a strategy to control health care costs. Weight Watchers meetings, group workouts, and health screenings are offered with the idea that health insurance, absenteeism and other costs will decline if employees are healthier.
Just once I wish they did something for you without counting the cost.
A 2010 Harvard analysis found medical costs fall $3.27 for every dollar spent on workplace wellness programs. Such programs have allowed John Hancock Financial to keep its employee health plan premium increases 1 to 3 percentage points lower than the overall market, according to spokeswoman Melissa Simon Berczuk. Storage company Iron Mountain is expecting premiums to stay flat in 2015 thanks to its wellness efforts, said Scott Kirschner, director of benefits strategy....
You can go see what is in the Globe's cart while the NSA picks through mine. Later.
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Wherever you go, don't go here and don't use a scanner.
Maybe you could get them delivered.
The links tell you how satisfied I am?
