(Jan 26) -- Whole Foods employees who tip the scales or light up after work would be spending more for their organic broccoli than their healthier co-workers, with the launch of the supermarket chain's "Team Member Healthy Discount Incentive" program aimed at controlling health care costs.This is... interesting. Thoughts?
In a letter to staff members that was leaked to gossip blog Gawker.com, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey describes the voluntary program as a chance for employees to increase their discount on Whole Foods products by "meeting specific criteria related to significant health measures." Among the biomarkers that the chain will consider: nicotine use, blood pressure, cholesterol level and body mass index (BMI).
The program will be divided into four categories: bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Staffers whose health is ranked "platinum" will benefit from a 30 percent discount, while those in the bronze range will get 22 percent. That's a difference of $4 on a $50 grocery purchase. Staff members who opt out of the in-store health screenings still get the usual 20 percent employee discount.
Mackey's letter suggests that Whole Foods is primarily interested in lowering the amount of money it spends on employee health care. Last year, it topped $150 million, and he warns that the figure is expected to increase. "One of our goals is to control our health care costs the best we can," he writes. "This benefits Whole Foods Market, and also benefits our Team Members through lower year-over-year insurance premium increases."
This is only the latest plot twist in the Whole Foods health care affair. Last year, Mackey faced an onslaught of criticism for his ideas on health care, most notably for saying that it isn't an intrinsic human right. "The last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement," he wrote in The Wall Street Journal at the time.
Instead, it looks like Mackey's getting into it with this latest plan.
Although BMI and cholesterol levels are widely used by doctors, they could ensnare workers with a higher-than-average BMI, like athletes with increased muscle mass.
And there's the irony that controlling discounts based on health means that fresh, natural, nutritious food becomes less accessible to those same staffers who evaluations apparently suggest they'd need it the most.
http://www.sphere.com/nation/article/whole-foods-staffers-to-pay-less-if-they-weigh-less/19331110
