Honeywell is not the first employer to be sued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission due to a wellness program, but it is the biggest. The EEOC filed its third suit Monday against the company, in part because employees can be fined up to $4,000 if they don’t participate in the wellness program. Employees and spouses must comply with biometric testing or be fined and lose contributions to health plans.
The EEOC says that the biometric testing is required – instead of optional – and violates several antidiscrimination laws. Reuters reports:
According to the lawsuit, employees and spouses are screened for blood pressure, cholesterol, blood-sugar levels, waist circumference and nicotine. Honeywell had informed employees that testing was to occur from Oct 22-31, the lawsuit said.
The testing program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, according to the lawsuit. The EEOC enforces federal labor laws having to do with discrimination.
The agency asked for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction enjoining Honeywell from seeking to impose the penalties. A hearing is set for Monday, according to court documents.
In response to the lawsuit, Honeywell said the EEOC was “woefully out of step with the health-care marketplace.”
The Wall Street Journal said that employers are watching the EEOC’s actions closely and are hoping the agency will issue guidelines to help them design programs that won’t stray into questionable territory.
Nicholas Bagley writing on The Incidental Economist describes an earlier EEOC suit against Orion Energy Systems filed in August. If an employee didn’t participate in that company’s wellness program, the company would not cover any of the individual’s insurance premiums. One woman opted out and was going to have to pay premiums and a $50 monthly penalty. She was fired about a month later allegedly for her refusal to take the assessment. The Bagley says that it was the mandatory element of the Orion program that was the problem:
The question has to be whether the payment in question leaves workers with a real choice. If not, the wellness program is effectively mandatory, which would violate the ADA.
Where do you draw the line? The Affordable Care Act allows employers to vary premiums by as much as 30% in connection with a wellness program. Is a plan that varies premiums by 30% truly voluntary? If Orion had adopted a 30% plan, Wendy Schobert’s refusal to participate would have cost her about $1,500 over the year—much more if she had a family plan. Might such a plan violate the ADA, even if it was authorized by the ACA? The EEOC is supposed to issue guidance on this question, but it hasn’t yet.
Because Orion’s wellness program was so draconian, the EEOC’s lawsuit probably isn’t a harbinger of the end of wellness programs. The case nonetheless underscores just how tricky it is to get wellness programs right. As Austin and Aaron have said time and again, wellness programs, at least as they’re currently structured, don’t seem to save money or improve health.
This post was written before the Honeywell suit was filed. It is the third one by the EEOC.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
[Image of a man with folded arms by flickr user Helen Cassidy]
