Think I'm crazy?  Unfortunately, it's just a matter of time.

Consumerism is slow to develop bottom-line results.  The employees most likely to use your fitness benefit are the ones who are already healthy.   Your medical costs keep multiplying...

Oh yeah, and this little tidbit - employers can now charge employees who are are unhealthy more for benefits under the final rules the federal government issued in December 2006 to ensure that wellness programs comply with the nondiscrimination provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.  The rules became effective July 1, 2007.

Workforce recently reported that Indiana-based Clarian Health will begin charging employees more for their health insurance in 2009 if they allow health risks such as tobacco use, obesity or high cholesterol to go unchecked.  From the Workforce article:

"Clarian’s decision to impose fees came after several years of operating a comprehensive wellness program, according to Steven Wantz, senior vice president for administration and human resources at Clarian, which has 13,000 employees working at five hospitals in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

"We didn’t just decide this. We have five years of wellness program history that included health risk appraisals, health coaching and other resources to help people reduce their risk factors," he says.

But even with the wellness initiatives, Clarian’s annual health benefit costs continued to climb, growing 12.9 percent in 2006 and 15.7 percent in 2007.

So when the U.S. departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury released final rules to ensure that wellness programs comply with HIPAA, "it was our window of opportunity," Wantz says.

"We believe that by using this premium charge approach, where it shows up in employees’ paychecks every two weeks, it will keep [costs] in front of the person, and we think it will be more effective at creating behavior change," he says. "It seems that a charge gets people’s attention more readily than an incentive."

The program will assess $5 per-paycheck fees on employees who do not meet minimum standards for body mass index, cholesterol, blood glucose, blood pressure and nonuse of tobacco. Although it will not be fully implemented until 2009, the effort was announced this year to give employees plenty of warning, Wantz says."

And that, my friends, is the cold hard reality.  Minus more significant results from consumerism and happy wellness programs, the stick will slowly begin to replace the carrot.  The only question is the pace of change. 

If you have ever read about recruiters doing negative recruiting among college sports programs, wait until you have to spin and rationalize this type of program in the marketplace as you try and recruit and retain the employees you have...