“Most people save for retirement by focusing on their wealth.  But you may accomplish more by focusing on your health,”  Dan Kadlec reports in the September 11, 2008 issue of Time Magazine.  “That’s because the out-of-pocket costs for diseases that may be avoidable through diet and exercise can be staggering. Getting and staying fit now may be worth tens of even hundreds of thousands of dollars later.  A sum that just might exceed the carefully crafted stockpile in your 401K. . . Bottom line:  shed some pounds, avoid diseases and invest the related windfall from age 40 to 65 and you could pad your nest egg by up to $700,000!”

Medicare spends 4 times as much on unhealthy people as it does on healthy ones.  Obese people spend one third more on health services than fit people and three fourths more on medications.  Making lifestyle choices that build health and prevent disease makes sense. Waiting until you get sick to take action is not only painful, it can be very costly.  Investing in your health today, saves paying a lot higher cost later.  

Insurance companies are wising up to the costs savings of wellness.  The Chicago Tribune reported on March 20, 2008:  “The movement by employers and insurance companies to put employee wellness at the forefront of consumer health choices is getting a big boost under a new push by the nation’s fourth-largest health insurance company. Chicago-based Health Care Service Corp., parent of Blue Cross and BlueShield of Illinois, added the word“wellness” to the mission statements of its four health plans.”  The company has embarked on a variety of wellness initiatives, including incorporating wellness programs in basic health benefit packages it sells. “How healthy we are depends probably more on what we do for ourselves than what the health-care system does for us,” said Dr. Richard Gayes, a medical director at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. “We are starting to focus on the question of health and not simply health care.” 

“That’s not to say that if you are fit you don’t need a financial plan. “Good health has a high value in dollars,” says Bruce Pyenson, an actuary at health consultants Milliman. “But it’s not enough for you to stop saving.”