It’s going to be hard for Kentucky to cut its health care costs for public employees without wellness programs that reduce chronic disease…That’s what an official with the State’s Personnel Cabinet told a panel of state lawmakers in Frankfort Wednesday.
Joe Cowles is commissioner in the Department of Employee Insurance…
Cowles says 68% of Kentucky’s adults are overweight or obese. More troubling, he says, is that 37% of children between the ages of 10 and 17 fall into the same category. Cowles says he’s structuring wellness initiatives in the Kentucky Employees Health Plan for 2014 to combat those problems.
About 270,000 public employees are covered under the plan.