Steven Burd, chairman, president and CEO of Safeway Inc., is the rare corporate leader who looks at these facts and sees good news:

• 70% of healthcare costs are driven by behavior

• 74% of all costs are confined to four chronic conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, overweight/obesity)

He likes those facts because he believes employers can influence workers to change behaviors and lower costs. That’s what almost every US employer is struggling to do–and he makes it look doable: In past two years, Safeway has seen its per capita health care cost decline significantly in each of the last two years.

Strategies include:

• Strong incentives for healthy behaviors
• Organized wellness teams among employees, with friendly competition
• Subsidies for healthy meals at company cafeteria
• Soon to launch a concierge service for cancer and cardiovascular disease for employees and family.

How much does he like America’s health care crisis? So much that he is starting a new organization, Safeway Health, that will provide behavior change services for other companies. “I believe the market can lower health care costs by 40 percent,” he says.

Crazy talk! But maybe he’s right…