Major Corporations Threaten to Withdraw Support for Obamacare
Major corporations that have previously supported the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, may withdraw that support because of disagreements over employee wellness programs that incentivize and punish certain behaviors for employees.
Reuters reports that wellness programs were a major reason that businesses supported Obamacare despite apprehensions over some aspects of the law. The programs reward and publish employees for behaviors like smoking and exercising.
The Obama Administration has challenged some of these wellness programs in court, turning ostensible allies in the issue of healthcare into possible foes. The White House challenges to certain programs are in the forms of lawsuits filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Honeywell International and two other companies, according to Reuters. Corporate opposition is strongest in the form of the Business Roundtable, which is made up of the chief executives of more than 200 major companies. Reuters says that some members were so shocked and enraged by the lawsuits they are threatening to become full-scale opponents to Obamacare. One of the major concerns in the lawsuit is that some wellness programs require medical testing, but medical testing as a condition for employment was outlawed as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990. Another facet of the lawsuit is that employees who do not participate may end up paying thousands of dollars more than employees who are involved in such wellness programs. Reuters says they could also lose their health insurance or jobs themselves. Because of these financial costs, the government's lawsuit contends that the programs are not actually voluntary.
The wellness programs were engineered as a means to help control healthcare costs, which rise faster than the prices of every other good or service in the U.S. economy. By creating incentives to be more healthy through exercising or quitting smoking, the wellness programs were meant to help control costs by helping to reduce the number of people with serious, long term diseases such as diabetes.
