Wellness

Plain and simple, today's health care costs in the United States are too high. In 2008, they amounted to about $2.2 trillion or 16.2 percent of the gross national product. The average per employee cost for health care was $9,144, up 8 percent from 2007.

You're sitting in a freshly dry-walled house, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup and talking on a cellphone. Which of these is most likely to be a cancer risk?

Americans are living longer, but not in every corner of the country. A new study shows that in hundreds of U.S. counties — mostly in the South — life expectancy has fallen.

Stories are popping up everywhere about employers who are refusing to hire workers who smoke, or are tacking on a premium penalty, or even offering a quitting incentive, hoping to reduce health care costs and increase productivity.

A round-up of the week’s employee benefits news, reports and controversy from around the web

It turns out that nicotine can rev up brain cells that normally signal people to stop eating when they're full, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

A Novo Nordisk study shows that one in five people with diabetes miss almost 15 hours of work per month due to disruption caused by episodes of dangerously low blood sugar, resulting in $2,294 in lost productivity per person, per year.

A new survey suggests employers are looking to employees to help cut rising health care costs, some offering incentives to encourage healthier behavior, or in an opposite defense, implementing penalties if goals are not met.