by Harold Sterker
LA County Public Health Educator
President Obama says we’ve got to start taking responsibility for our own health. I think he’s right.
People ask where the savings in the president’s plan will come from. Most of his savings are coming from prevention, and that will only increase if we do more outreach and more education.
If you believe in prevention, you have to be willing to do it. And that’s where promoting wellness at the workplace pays off.
If we really focused on prevention, how many children who are six months old could we immunize? If we really focused on prenatal visits and encouraged our co-workers to keep their appointments how many lives could we improve? If parents get on the plan, the next time they go to the grocery story they’ll make better choices. If good habits start at work, they can go home with us.
The core principles of wellness are keeping people healthy, helping people with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease stay on their health regimen, and getting people back to work in the best way.
SEIU members in LA County advocated to eliminate co-pays for prenatal visits because we knew that would help people keep their appointments. We knew we could save a lot of lives and a lot of money. In fact, wellness programs have saved more than $7 million since 2007 and reduced premiums from 13.3% to 11.3% for Kaiser, one of our major plans.
Major companies like Dupont have implemented wellness programs for their employees. As public employees we can be a leader. In this year’s contract bargaining we’re talking to LA County about how to take the best practices countywide. We want to meet with department heads and wellness coordinators on a regular basis. We don’t need more lip service and meetings. We need more wellness.