Better Health Through Rewards and Punishments Essay

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Health Care Trends

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act the personal health of every American has become an important issue. While most health care funds are spent treating diseases and other health problems, there has recently been a push toward focusing on prevention of health problems. For example, "chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes are now responsible for more than 75% of health care costs." (Berman, 201, p.328) But as these health problems are almost entirely preventable a focus on prevention could save a great deal of money that would be better spent elsewhere. Therefore many Americans are beginning to endorse policies that prevent health problems before they start. Some of these ideas involve incentives to reward people for healthy behavior while others involve penalties to punish those who do not. However, research indicates that punishments are not as effective as incentives when it comes to altering the health behavior of Americans.

It is very difficult to alter individual's personal lifestyle choices, especially when those choices impact a person's health. But it is in the national interest to get people to make healthy lifestyle choices and both the public and private sectors are recognizing this fact. With this in mind there are two approaches that have been proposed: the carrot and stick.

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The carrot refers to incentives offered to individuals in order to entice them to adopt healthy practices while the stick refers to punishments inflicted as a result of not doing so. In some cases companies have offered incentives ranging from gifts to cash for employees who engage in healthy activities. Local and state governments have also incorporated this idea into their policies by offering "enhanced" health care packages to Medicare recipients who "undergo screening exams, take prescribed medications, show up for appointments, and so on." (Blacksher, 2008, p.13) On the other hand there is the "stick," or series of punishments aimed at forcing people to undergo personal health changes. Some companies have taken the step to charge their employees "when they fail to meet certain benchmarks related to body mass index, cholesterol, blood glucose, and blood pressure." (Blacksher,….....

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