Among the slate of bills being reintroduced in Congress is the Healthy Workforce Act of 2009, which proposes a 10-year tax credit to employers covering up to 50% of the costs associated with establishing a qualified wellness program.

The first time the Healthy Workforce Act was proposed in 2007 it didn't make it past the House and Senate financial committees, and advisers like Brandon Guest, president of South Carolina's Horne/Guest, say "you can justify the ROI on a wellness program" with or without it.

Still, Janis Morrison is hoping the act will pass this time around. A registered nurse with a master's in education, Morrison knows the importance of teaching healthy habits. A VP of health and wellness for EBS Capstone in Massachusetts, she's seen the results firsthand when working with employer groups.

Morrison works around the fact that many employers don't have money set aside for wellness initiatives by helping them leverage free information from their community or insurance company.

"Typically, what happens is I go into companies and they don't have any budget appropriated for wellness, and if they do, it's very small," she says. "If there was a hope that they could be reimbursed for what they do, at least partially, I think that they would be more amenable to setting aside some money next year. That's what I hope for."

A catalyst for wellness

The act is co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Harkin and John Cornyn and Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Mary Bono Mack. "It's very well planned," says Morrison.

Programs that would qualify for the tax credit include health education and risk assessments, behavioral change programs, and offering incentives such a reduction in health insurance premiums, according to Harkin's office.

The credit caps at $200 per employee for businesses with less than 200 employees, and $100 per employee for larger companies.

Senator Edward Kennedy tapped Harkin as the head of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee's working group on wellness and prevention last fall. That group will be writing the wellness and prevention title of the HELP committee's reform proposal, but it remains to be seen if the Healthy Workforce Act will be attached to such legislation.

"That is hard to say, but obviously wellness and prevention are two areas where [Harkin] is going to be working on health reform," says Kate Cyrul, Harkin's communications director.

The WorkCare Group, which provides products and consulting on worksite health and productivity, supports the act. A major benefit of it is the motivation provided for small and medium-size companies to get involved in worksite health promotion, says George Pfeiffer, president.

"There's a huge divide between those firms and large companies in regards to offering just basic programs to a comprehensive program," he says. "I think that the Harkin bill, through its tax credits, can help act as a catalyst to get a broader range of companies involved."

Promoting wellness, regardless

At Horne/Guest, the benefits firm targets middle-market employers with a wellness initiative, established through United Benefit Advisors, that includes a Web-based program with quarterly challenges and health risk assessments. Horne/Guest employs a wellness coordinator to facilitate the initiative.

"In the middle market, the HR person ... is wearing a lot of different hats, so they don't have the time to stop and implement a wellness program. They really need someone else to do it for them, so that's why we put a wellness coordinator on staff," says Guest.

The tax incentive proposed in the Healthy Workforce Act may be a good idea, but Guest wonders if it will matter in the grand scheme of health reform.

"The whole discussion about whether or not employers are going to be in this business after the next 10 years anyway would cause people to say, 'Well, why do that? Because I'm just going to pass this whole burden on the costs onto the back of the government, so why worry about it?'" says Guest. "Let the government worry about what kind of incentives they want to get these employees to be healthy."

Even so, Pfeiffer says this type of legislation is long overdue, but he's not sure if it will pass in this Congress. "I think it will be passed. I'm not sure it's going to be this year simply because of all these other things [on the agenda]," he says.

Whether the legislation passes or not, Horne/Guest will keep on promoting wellness. As far as Guest sees it, there's really no need to offer a tax incentive for a wellness program to make it work "if you take into consideration not only the reduction in health care costs, but also the health dividends associated with a healthy workforce" that already exist.

Guest says wellness initiatives don't have to be pricey, and Horne/Guest is practicing what they preach. In the past three months, their 24-person staff has lost 186 pounds by implementing the same WellnessWORKS program they offer to customers.