Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration and labor unions representing the majority of the city’s workforce were close to reaching a deal Wednesday to start a program that Emanuel hopes will help slash the cash-starved city’s annual $500 million tab for employee health care costs.
City employees would be required to participate in a wellness program involving frequent health screenings or pay $50 a month more for medical insurance coverage, sources close to the negotiations told the Chicago News Cooperative.
A team of Emanuel aides led by Deputy Mayor Mark Angelson have negotiated the agreement with leaders of virtually every major city labor group except for the police officers’ union, the sources said.
Kathleen Strand, a spokeswoman for Angelson, declined comment on the negotiations. Since before taking office in May, Emanuel has promised to institute a wellness program, saying it could cut the city’s health care bill.
An agreement on a wellness plan also would be a rare bit of good news on the labor relations front for a mayor who has unsuccessfully demanded concessions from city worker unions, threatened to lay off hundreds of workers imminently and clashed with teachers’ union officials over his push for a longer school day.
On Wednesday, the wellness program agreement was sent to city union leaders, who are expected to give their final approval as early as this week.
Chicago Federation of Labor President Jorge Ramirez and other union leaders declined comment. The workers that would be part of the new program included the 4,000 members of the American Federation of County, State and Municipal Employees, whose spokesman confirmed negotiations but also declined to comment on the talks.
“AFSCME is a firm believer in workplace wellness programs,” union spokesman Anders Lindall said in a statement. “When done right, they can improve the health of workers and save money at the same time.”
The city has about 35,000 workers, and about 10,300 of them are represented by the Fraternal Order of Police Local 7, which has not yet accepted the Emanuel administration’s wellness plan. FOP President Mike Shields declined comment.
Emanuel’s hand-picked transition team called for the mayor to launch such a program within his first year in office. The transition report stated that only 4 percent of city employees account for more than 60 percent of the city’s health care costs.
Under the agreement with the unions, all employees who participate would undergo an initial health screening that focuses on preventing chronic illnesses such as asthma, heart disease and diabetes. Based on the results of the health risk assessment, workers then could be required to participate in programs to improve their physical condition, the sources said.
Problems detected in the initial screenings could lead to a spike in the city’s immediate health-care costs, but the theory is that the long-term savings from managing those conditions more aggressively would far outweigh the program’s operational costs.
Smokers would not face a penalty for continuing to use tobacco, the sources said, but the program would require them at least to try to kick the habit.
Sources said similar programs in other places have generated participation rates of about 80 percent.
Discussions on the creation of a comprehensive wellness program began under then-Mayor Richad M. Daley and have continued since the change of power in the mayor’s office, with negotiation of final details this week.
The city’s program would be modeled after a similar program that was instituted at R.R. Donnelley, the Chicago-based printing giant where Angelson was the C.E.O. Angelson currently is Emanuel’s $1-a-year point man on budget issues.
At Angelson’s side in many of the discussions with union leaders was another former top executive at R.R. Donnelley, Ted Theophilos. He heads a Lombard-based company that runs wellness programs. Angelson told union leaders that Theophilos’ company, EngagementHealth, would not bid to run the city’s program, sources said. Theophilos did not return calls seeking comment.
His firm has run the wellness program for the city of East Moline, Ill., which has about 170 employees. Julie Tate, East Moline’s accounting and insurance clerk, said the city in western Illinois does not penalize workers who decline to participate. Instead, it offers reductions of up to $35 a month from insurance premiums to employees who achieve goals such as losing weight, or who use pedometers to prove that they walk at least 10,000 steps per day.
Tate said she did not know how much the city had saved using the program, which began in East Moline in 2009 under an agreement with three unions. The city pays the contractor $225 a year for each participant, she said.
“It’s a wonderful program,” Tate said, adding that the wellness company had set up kiosks at the city’s offices where employees can readily check on their weight or blood pressure.
I believe this is correct. I also believe this is the kind of plan that we are likley to end up with, though somewhat less generous as it will be forced on us by our creditors who won’t give a hair about healthcare for seniors and the needy. Read “Penny Health” articles if you dont have insurance.
STOP calling this a deal to cut health care costs! That’s not what it is: it’s a deal to cut the city’s share of their workers’ health care expenditures, i.e. via reduced benefit payments. That in no way will reduce the actual cost of care that workers will receive — they’ll just get stuck paying a higher portion of those costs themselves (and some will go bankrupt because of it: health care debts are the number one reason for personal bankruptcy filings). Moreover, this deal will have absolutely no effect on workers’ **need** for health care services, nor the factors that affect what those services cost, NOR will it prevent health insurance premium increases. The ONLY thing that reduces health care costs is a reduced need for care, as would happen if people were suddenly healthier and the rate of injuries, assaults, and epidemics fell. And *that’s* not gonna happen, certainly not in the short run. So for heaven’s sake, stop swallowing the nonsense the spinmeisters peddled to you — **BE PRECISE** and call a spade a spade, already.