What Health Care Should Be

Steven Burd, CEO of Safeway, plugs his company's plan to cut health care costs in a June 12th editorial in the Wall Street Journal.  Much like safe driving discounts auto insurers give, Safeway's health insurance plan discounts those with healthier lifestyles.

Rather than legislating health restraints, like trans fat foods and sugary sodas, we really need to move in a direction like Safeway's.  In a Safeway employee's life, if they wanted to live a certain way, they just pay for it.  Like they would have to in every other facet of life.  If they want a luxury car, they pay for it.  Fuel economy in a small car?  Pay for a small car. Wanna live in a mansion?  Earn the money and pay for it.  Why should health care be any different?

Savings have been shown to be drastic in Safeway's case:

At Safeway we believe that well-designed health-care reform, utilizing market-based solutions, can ultimately reduce our nation's health-care bill by 40%. The key to achieving these savings is health-care plans that reward healthy behavior. As a self-insured employer, Safeway designed just such a plan in 2005 and has made continuous improvements each year. The results have been remarkable. During this four-year period, we have kept our per capita health-care costs flat (that includes both the employee and the employer portion), while most American companies' costs have increased 38% over the same four years.

Sounds like a better plan for affordable health care than Obamacare could ever be.

-Colonel Steve