Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Cash for Health

Incentive awards can be very motivating. I remember the free personal pan pizza of the Pizza Hut "Book It" promotion as one of the most incentivizing forces in my elementary school world!  Positive reinforcement has the potential to work equally well for kids and adults alike.

If you could verify a satisfactory "report card" from a yearly doctor checkup, with good scores in blood pressure, body-mass-index, and other important health predictors, perhaps you should receive a monetary incentive.

It may behoove federal or state governments to give such an incentive as a "healthy living" tax credit or deduction. Healthier living could save the healthcare system untold billions of dollars every year.

If implementation would be too controversial for government, perhaps a non-profit organization could carry the torch. They could be funded by advertising dollars from companies with a health and fitness emphasis (e.g., Whole Foods Market, REI, or Nike) and perhaps give out their gift cards, rebates, and coupons as the reward incentives.



CATEGORY: Health / Social / Economic
IDEATION: Mar 22, 2010.  Kyle Shoff and Dave Costenaro.

1 comment:

  1. This idea reminds me of this video on gaming, especially the part where he's talking about the college prof who converted his grading system into an on going "experience points" system like a video game, and it increased student participation.

    http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/

    He even goes one step further and supposes what life would be like if you rewarded people's public reputation, which essentially costs nothing, for making healthy decisions.

    It's an entertaining video, both on an intellectual level, and also because the guy has an interesting William Shattner-ness to him

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