Report: Colo. employers would save hundreds of millions with a healthier workforce

Employers in Colorado could save more than a quarter-billion dollars a year if only their employees and their dependents were less depressed and lost weight.

That’s the bottom line from a new Colorado Health Report Card published by the Colorado Health Foundation showing, among other things, that the state is No. 13 in the country for the percentage of adults reporting poor mental health.

The Report Card is in its seventh year, but this year asked the question: “What if we were No. 1?” The study ranks No. 1 as being “best” and No. 50 and being “worst.”

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The National Business Group on Health estimates that approximately 217 million workdays are completely or partially lost annually due to mental illness in the United States. This results in $44 billion per year in lost productivity. For Colorado, that figure is $121 million.

The Report Card also shows that Colorado employers and employees could save an estimated $229 million annually in health costs if adult obesity rates returned to levels seen in 1996.

Colorado still has the lowest rate of adult obesity, according to the study, but that rate has doubled in the last 15 years. Employers pay an additional $1,091 annually in health care costs for an employee who is obese compared with one who is not.

While Colorado remains the lowest for adult obesity, the state is No. 23 for childhood obesity. If the state was No. 1, employers and employees could save an estimated $38 million annually in health care costs.

“While it’s true that Colorado fares well in some areas — and not so well in others — the latest Report Card shows how individual Coloradans would benefit from the vision of making Colorado the healthiest state in the nation,´ said Anne Warhover, president and CEO of the Colorado Health Foundation.

“Colorado may be the ‘leanest’ state, yet we’re clearly far from the top of the class by many measures in health and health care,” she said.