Hiring Policies and Health Care Costs
An interesting article in today's Wall Street Journal examines whether businesses can structure their hiring policies to cut health costs. The focus of the article is a proposal before the Wal-Mart board of directors that would mandate the incorporation of physical activity into all jobs (think cashiers gathering shopping carts). Wal-Mart argues that this a positive effort to encourage physical health and fitness in the workplace. Workers groups counter that it is an attempt to discriminate against the elderly, the obese, and those with pre-existing medical conditions and thereby save on employee health care costs. Regardless of whether Wal-Mart adopts the proposal, this looks to be a polarizing issue that may ultimately have to be decided by the courts.