Tom Harkin: “today, culminating many months of consultation with health experts and business, Senator Gordon Smith and I will…”

“today, culminating many months of consultation with health experts and business, Senator Gordon Smith and I will introduce the Healthy Workforce Act. The aim of this bill is to help American businesses to provide a whole range of opportunities for their employees to live healthier lives. The idea is to make it easier for businesses to push more of their health care investments upstream, helping their employees to get healthy an stay healthy, and to stay out of the hospital. Corporate America traditionally has not been a major player in the field of wellness and disease prevention. But that is rapidly changing as you can tell by the presence of these important business leaders, here, this morning. This is extremely encouraging. Because corporate America has the expertise, the resources, and the enlightened self-interest to make a huge difference in the way we approach health care in this country. So, in introducing this bill, Senator Smith and I are making something of a business proposition, a proposal for a partnership. We believe that the Federal Government needs to provide incentives in the form of tax credits and, in return, we want corporate America to step more boldly into the field of wellness and disease prevention.”