A national data privacy group is seeing red over a new CVS policy that requires workers who use company health insurance to report their weight, and body fat and glucose levels to the insurer — or pay a $600-a-year penalty. 
 
 “This is an incredibly coercive and invasive thing to ask employees to do,” said Patient Privacy Rights founder Dr. Deborah Peel, adding that mounting health care costs have made these policies increasingly common. ||||| Looks like ObamaCare may be rearing its head. In the wake of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, CVS is telling its employees they need to reveal their height, weight, body fat percent and other personal information for health insurance purposes. 
 
 The Rhode Island-based company, which employs around 200,000 individuals, is telling workers who use its health insurance they need to have a wellness review done -- or pay up. 
 
 CVS says it will pay for the health reviews and the information will go to a third party administrator of CVS's benefits, not CVS itself. According to the company, CVS bosses will not be able to access their employees' health records. 
 
 The idea is to incentivize healthy living. CVS says the idea is nothing new. 
 
 "The idea of an employee wellness plan is perfectly legal under the ADA. Courts held up these plans," said Joshua Kersey, a Tampa labor attorney. He says with "Obamacare" looming in 2014, practices like this wellness review are likely to become more common, because a lot of employers are expecting to pay more for their workers' health insurance. 
 
 "The more money it's going to save the employer, the more incentive the employer has to affect these types of programs," he said. 
 
 In CVS's case, workers not comfortable getting the review done will have to pay a $600 annual penalty. 
 
 "It is voluntary because you're welcome to get healthcare through someone else," he said. 
 
 In a statement, CVS says it's implemented the program to try and keep employees as healthy as possible, and help them manage their costs. 
 
 Click for more from My Fox Tampa Bay. ||||| A new policy at CVS requires all employees who use the company’s health care to report their weight, glucose levels, and body fat to their insurer, or pay a penalty of $600 dollars — a hefty sum for many of the low-wage staff in the chain pharmacy’s stores. 
 
 The rule mimics other efforts provide incentives for healthy behavior, like the discount that Whole Foods employees get based on their Body Mass Index. But patient privacy advocates have serious qualms with the effort: 
 
 “This is an incredibly coercive and invasive thing to ask employees to do,” said Patient Privacy Rights founder Dr. Deborah Peel, adding that mounting health care costs have made these policies increasingly common.[...] But in exchange, workers must sign a form saying the screening is voluntary, and that the insurer can give test results to WebMD Health Services Group. The firm provides health management programs and benefit support to CVS. If workers don’t sign up, their medical coverage will jump by $50 a month. 
 
 CVS insists that it will not have access to the data. 
 
 Leaving aside the privacy implications, the new policy could end up penalizing low-income Americans who are already stretched too thin. A minimum wage worker putting in a 40-hour workweek makes about $1,160 a month. A fine of $50 a month is a huge amount for a minimum wage CVS employee to fork over if they consider the measure a privacy infringement, especially given the fact that American workers’ health care costs are rising while their wages are stagnating. It may be a smart business move to CVS to try to lower costs, but it’s at the expense of their workers’ interests.
– CVS has touched a nerve with a new policy requiring workers to disclose a host of health data—including their weight, body fat and glucose levels, and blood pressure—or else pay an extra $50 a month for their health insurance. The move has drawn outrage from at least one national privacy group, the Boston Herald reports. "This is an incredibly coercive and invasive thing to ask employees to do," the founder of Patient Privacy Rights told the paper. CVS refers to the policy as "a health screening and wellness review," and emphasizes that it won't have access to the information, which will go straight to its health insurance provider. It's also offering to pay for all necessary screenings. But Think Progress argues that the policy is unfair to lower-income workers, who can't afford to pay $600 a year to opt-out if they feel their privacy is being invaded. Fox News, meanwhile, sees this as an early consequence of ObamaCare—and a lawyer tells the network it's perfectly legal.