Insurance incentives?

My company has a health incentive plan where you can earn up to $600 dollars in a calendar year for yourself. You can use that money for either a gift card, a 401K deposit, cash in hand (minus taxes), or for your HSA, so I work on earning the full amount each year because I want it for my HSA - that, in addition to the company's $500 input I get every year for using one of their high deductible plans gives me a great boost at the start of the year!

What irritates me is that as the years have gone by, the things you can do to earn dollars has drastically shrunk and the values they set for goals for cholesterol, blood sugar, etc, are in many cases ridiculous; I was told by the "health" assessment they give that based on my blood work, I had elevated cholesterol and needed to talk to my doctor; my doctor saw my bloodwork and was scratching her head saying my cholesterol levels were fine. When I showed her the sheet that listed what they were considering fine, she couldn't understand why they wanted such high numbers; they were more stringent than the standards set by the American Heart Association!

One thing they HAVE changed that I approve of is when it comes to body weight. Before, the only way you got points for body weight was if you were in your healthy BMI or had a waist of 40" or less for men and 35" or less for women. Now, they've added another goal post of "have you lost 5% of what you weighed last year". While I'm not even close to healthy BMI (I'm 15 lbs away from getting down to obesity class I; but hey, I started at a high obesity class III, so I've made much progress!) and still have 6" go to to hit that 35", but I have definitely lost way more than 5% of my weight this time last year, so I'll actually get points for that this year.

I hate some of the options they give us, too, such as having to use one of their phone health coaches. I set one up to get the 50 points I needed, and when the woman called me asking what I was seeking help with, I was blunt with her and told her I was doing fine and that the only reason I set it up was because I needed the 50 points

bmeadows380 wrote: »

Zoomie402 wrote: »

I wish my company had incentives. I work in healthcare, and the place I work for is owned by a large insurance company. You'd think it would be in their best interest to have healthy employees. As it stands.....our insurance sucks!

My brother has a similar issue. The job he has pays well, but the insurance premiums are absolutely ridiculous. His wife recently lost her own insurance, and my brother was telling me yesterday that to add her and the children to his insurance will drive the premium up to over $1500 a month - more than his mortgage payment! And its a high deductible plan!

Absolutely insane. He had it right - wasn't the healthcare act supposed to be making insurance affordable, because how is that remotely affordable? And he's in the middle class catch-22; he makes too much to be eligible for any of the assistance programs but since they are a family of 4, his pay is still modest.

For most Americans, there is no affordable healthcare. And deductibles are outrageous.
It’s probably going to get worse because of COVID-19. Remember this when making voting decisions.