Humana Inc. figures if you can’t beat ’em, let a relentless automated taskmaster beat ’em.
Rather than rail against the fact that too many Americans are wrecking their health risk profiles by playing video games when they should be exercising, Humana, Louisville, Ky. (NYSE:HUM), is working with Ubisoft Entertainment, a video game developer, to create a fitness game for the Kinect for Xbox 360 system.
The “Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012” game includes workout programs aimed at children, seniors and people with high blood pressure.
Each game comes with a virtual coach and places the player in a virtual gym that mirrors the player’s movements. The program can track the calories a player has burned in real time, Humana says.
No word on whether players will be trapped forever in the smelly gym level because they have not been able to rub the magic weightlifting machine knob that reveals the gym where Justin Bieber hangs out.
DRUGS
Average annual prescription costs for low-income Medicare enrollees who get help paying for Medicare Part D drug coverage may be about twice the average for Part D enrollees who get no government help with paying the Part D premiums.
Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have published prescription spending figures in a review of Medicare Part D spending patterns.