I have a regular office, thankfully, in a satellite facility, but not so long ago I had some meetings over at the Death Star, and I popped down into Finance to grab some checks from the week's run. There I discovered Accounts Payable doing reenacting one of the tamer early vignettes from the Story of O at her desk. What are you doing? I asked.
Exercises, she said.
What do you mean, exercises? I replied.
I mean exercises exercises, she replied.
At your desk? I said, rather incredulous.
Obviously.
We, like many workplaces, now find ourselves bombarded by something called "wellness," which is corporateses for "don't eat so many Oreos, fatass." The basic premise, honed in the offices of Highmark and its peers, presented to our CFOs and HR managers, disseminated at staff meetings, soaked up by all the compliant Wagearner-Americans, is that the primary driver of higher rates is you, fatass, and if only you eat an apple a day and touch your chubby toes from time to time, you will see your copays drop like . . . Well, fine. They won't drop. But maybe you'll see increases of 15% annually instead of the going 25.
What really drives health care through the roof is a complex set of factors, but you, fatass, are less of one than you think. It's got more to do with government undercompensation of providers through Medicare and Medicaid and the expense of treating the uninsured, which hospitals and doctors recoup by overbilling commercial providers, who pass the increases to the companies that purchase their plans, plus profits, of course. Also, keeping your parents alive, fatasses, is expensive. You, your 500-calorie Starbucks snacks, your prehypertensive heart, and your diabetes affect the actuarial tables, sure, but less than the "Obesity Epidemic" screamers would like you to believe.
Anyway. Wellness. Whatever the origins of this interconnected series of scams, it bears as much relation to health as North Korean mass calisthenics. Not coincidentally, they bear as much relation to the ol' surveiller et punir as North Korean mass calisthenics as well. That's to say precious little relation in the former, and plenty in the latter.
Consider. A hard three-mile run burns half a Snickers. Two tough hours at the gym might net you a half a Big Mac. Sitting at your desk and reaching for the sky nets you shit. The best a rigorous desk-side workout will do is make you more hungry.
Why are you exercising at your desk, I asked Accounts Payable.
I don't know. They told me to.
Who told you to?
You know. Everyone.
Wouldn't you rather take a walk or something? Get out of the office.
I've got to watch my ebay bid, she replied.
5 comments:
I don't know what all you're doing at the gym during your "two tough hours," but a big mac is 704 calories, and if you only work off half of that in 120 minutes then you should probably up the rpm a few notches. My 62-year-old mother gets at least 400 an hour.
The rest of it I have no problem with.
I was including fries and a drink! Supersize me, baby.
Oh, and a hard three mile run actually burns fewer calories than a more leisurely three mile run (because it takes less time) but unless you're doing the 5k in about nine minutes, you'll more than make up for that snickers bar.
"1/3 of Every Dollar Spent on Healthcare Goes To Corporate Bureaucracy"
http://americanassembler.com/issues/healthcare/index.html
We've gone totally nuts as a nation. End-of-life care is incredibly expensive. If you drop over dead from a heart attack at 60, you just SAVED the health care system a ton of money.
Of course, employers do want you to have the good sense to wait till you're 65 (plus one day) to drop over dead, so they don't have to deal with the costs of your illness.
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