Ford Motor Co. is cutting benefits for U.S. salaried employees as it struggles to conserve cash after a $7.2 billion loss so far this year. Ford is scaling back health care benefits, raising premiums, eliminating merit pay for 2007 and delaying December paychecks by one week, a Ford spokeswoman said Thursday.

"We are working hard to ensure we continue to provide competitive total compensation to our work force, while attacking our uncompetitive cost structure, including employee health care costs," Mark Fields, head of the automaker's Americas unit, said in an e-mail to employees Wednesday.

While many employee benefits strategies have centered on just cost-shifting, one factor of rising health care costs is frequently overlooked: unhealthy lifestyles. BeniComp Advantage is the only tool that motivates employees to manage their key health factors.

Like a good-driver discount offered by automobile insurers, a health insurance product that rewards employees for hitting specific biometric targets — for example, low cholesterol and low blood pressure readings and a healthy weight — is an incentive to induce behavior change, says Jim Pshock, executive director of BeniComp Advantage, an employee wellness program. "We are starting to see much more employee receptivity to the idea of lifestyle factors mattering," he says. "Employees are tired of seeing less coverage for higher contributions, particularly those employees who don't smoke and who manage their weight and take their blood pressure medication, yet continually bear the brunt of the cost for those who do not."

Dr. Bob Gleeson could probably tell you how long you're going to live, just by asking you a few questions. He's not a fortune teller, though it is his job to know such things about people. The 57-year-old Gleeson is vice president and medical director of Northwestern Mutual, Milwaukee, where he has spent 25 years studying people's lifestyle choices and the impact those choices have on their health and life expectancy. He is one of six Northwestern Mutual physicians who work in underwriting for life insurance, long-term care and disability insurance.