Employers are in agreement that offering wellness programs is a logical way to reduce health care costs. Health Care Reform further encourages employers to develop a wellness program or enhance the program they have in place. In fact, starting next year small employers will have access to $200 million in grants to fund health promotion programs and larger employers will be able to increase premium differentials in their wellness programs to 30 percent or more. At least a third of all U.S. employers offer financial incentives, or are planning to introduce them, to get their employees to lose weight or get healthier in other ways.
Employers can play a pivotal role in helping their employees achieve a sense of retirement readiness. Historically, however, four behavioral obstacles have been most responsible for keeping defined contribution plan participants from reaching their retirement savings goals. These include low participation, lack of ongoing engagement, inadequate savings rates, and inappropriate asset allocation.
J.P. Morgan Treasury Services, administrator of the J.P. Morgan Health Savings Account (HSA) program, recently released insights into the saving, spending, and investing habits of its more than 500,000 HSA accountholders. Data in J.P. Morgan’s Program Snapshot provide not only a better understanding of how HSAs are being used but also how they have become an integral part of saving and paying for medical expenses throughout the country.