Managed Care - February 2008 - (Page 41) Meanwhile, in California, Assemblyman Lloyd Levine is promoting a bill (AB 1439) that would give a tax credit to businesses that provide their employees access to fitness-related activities. The goal “is to try to help people get into healthy, active lifestyles,” he says. To promote the legislation, Levine ran five miles from his home to an event announcing the initiative. “An hour’s worth of exercise would reduce health costs to the employer, the employee, and the state,” Levine argues. Tax credit Under AB 1439, businesses in California would receive a tax credit equal to 10 percent of what they spend each year to improve the fitness of their employees. Qualifying expenditures could include costs of equipping, maintaining, and operating a facility, financially supporting an amateur athletic team that engages in vigorous athletic activity, or subsidizing a membership in a health club. Half the cost of employing a person or organization to provide onsite information on topics such as nutrition or instruction on fitness activity or costs incurred in connection with hiring an organization to operate an employee fitness facility also would qualify. AB 1439 is modeled on legislation introduced in Florida. In the Sunshine state, Rep. Eduardo Gonzalez introduced House Bill 325, which would have provided credits against corporate income taxes and insurance premium taxes for expenditures to provide employee fitness facilities or to support fitness-related activities by employees. However, the measure died in committee. In New Jersey, a measure (Assembly Bill 990) along the same lines was introduced by Assemblywoman Linda Stender. The bill proposes granting corporate business tax and gross income tax credits for employer expenditures to provide physical fitness benefits to workers. In New York, Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith filed S 2595, which proposed an annual tax credit to businesses of up to $200 per employee and $10,000 per employer for “qualified expenses related to occupational wellness.” While most of these wellness incentive proposals, including the Smith initiative, may not have advanced all that far in the legislative process, they have attracted increased attention from health care stakeholders, and while the bills differ in detail, they all focus on specific actions employers can take to promote fitness by employees and list expenditures that could qualify for tax credits. There has also been action on the regulatory front. For example, in Indiana, the Department of Health is making available a certified wellness program that small businesses in the state can use to qualify for tax credits. Those credits are intended “to recognize those businesses that are working to improve Indiana’s health status by providing wellness opportunities for their employees,” the department notes. The Indiana program applies to businesses with 2 to 100 full-time employees and allows recovery of 50 percent of the cost of providing wellness programs. For a wellness program to become certified, it must include weight loss, smoking cessation, and preventive services. Employers must develop health risk assessments for their employees to measure blood pressure, glucose levels, cholesterol, and body mass index. They must provide educational materials such as pamphlets, magazines, newsletters, posters and access to Internet sites. Employers also are to institute reward programs that encourage employees to complete all three components of the wellness program. “These rewards need not be extensive,” the department advises, but may include free healthy lunches or gift certificates. Measurement tools A final requirement is the use of measurement tools to evaluate the success and validity of each wellness program component. That may include listing steps being taken, outlining what upper management is doing to encourage and to support employees, calculating the number or percentage of employees participating, collecting data on results, monitoring changes, and gathering testimonials from employees. Thus far, no word on how many employers are taking advantage of the program, which was made retroactive to Jan. 1, 2007. But it undoubtedly will be watched closely by supporters of the approach as they promote similar programs in other states. MC Michael Levin-Epstein is a free lance health care writer specializing in federal legislative and administrative issues. FEBRUARY 2008 / MANAGED CARE 41
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