In its ongoing effort to inform Congress about the incentive industry, Incentive Legislation Campaign (ILC) members traveled to Capitol Hill on August 4 to meet face-to-face with targeted Members of Congress, their representatives and committee staffers, according to a recent press release. The ILC is proposing that wellness incentives need to be part of a nationwide effort designed to encourage employees at all levels to take steps to improve their physical well-being.

Positioning their cause as a way to advance public policy and encourage a healthy American workforce, ILC representatives met with Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), advisors to Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico), majority and minority Ways and Means Committee staffers, and the Senate Majority Finance Committee’s Senior Benefits and Health advisors.

Incentive Federation Executive Director George Delta, who worked with ILC Legislative Counsel Jim Miller to organize the meetings, explained that several bills currently being considered by Congress could provide a good way to leverage the use of incentives as a means to reduce health care costs and improve the physical well-being of American workers.

“Incentives have already proved their usefulness in promoting workplace safety and length of employee service. As measures are introduced to encourage employment programs and promote savings in health care, the use of incentives could help jump-start efforts aimed at improving the lives of average Americans and bolstering workplace productivity,” according to Delta.

Delta continued, “One of the best ways to encourage wellness incentives is to make them nontaxable to employees and deductible to employers, so the ILC is educating members of Congress about ways this could be done within the context of measures they are already considering.”

Reflecting on the success of the meetings, ILC representative Brian Galonek, CPIM, and President of All Star Incentive Marketing, commented that “we were all very encouraged by the willingness of the Senators and their staffers to learn about the workings of our industry and their openness to considering ways in which our objectives could be advantageous to legislative efforts that are currently underway.”

Delta went on to explain that ILC members are gathering supplementary data and case studies that they plan to present to additional members of Congress and their staffs immediately following the November elections.