Posted on 03/05/2004 2:45:30 PM PST by at bay
Rising worker’s compensation and health care cost is prompting San Mateo County Sheriff Don Horsley to put a ban on hiring smokers.
“If your lifestyle contributes to a disability, I’m sorry about that. But I don’t think the taxpayers should pay.” said Horsley.
Since smoking is known to cause numerous health problems, Horsley said the decision to not hire smokers is an economical move that could save the county a lot of money in workers’ compensation costs each year.
The idea came to him after the Sheriff’s Department had to settle a $90,000 workers’ compensation claim with a retired employee. The retiree developed lung cancer…..
(Excerpt) Read more at msdailyjournal.com ...
I'd suspected it, but thanks for the confirmation.
Good - enjoy your smokes
There are numerous "stupid" behaviors that cost taxpayers far more money than smokers do and none of them are being singled out for job discrimination
Such as?
The 5'5" state employee sitting next to me at the bar drinking booze and eating fries is probably costing you poor dumped upon taxpayer more than the cop that enjoys a cigarette with his coffee or after work.
Bad behavior is bad behavior is bad behavior - plus a "smoker" enjoying a single cigarette a day and no more is few and far between. I've never known one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Also, bad diet can be corrected by eating better - eating bad is not the same as inhaling toxic chemicals. Furthermore, gained weight through bad diet and be lost through exercise and caloric restriction. How many folks were cured of ephysema and bronchiogenic carcinoma (which coincidentaly has increased in parallel with cigarete smoking trends), again? Hmmm? An easy 60% of the sickest patients I interview have a history of smoking. One guy who'd had two quadruple bypass surgeries from repeat MI's, and congetive heart failure was told by his physician that if he didn't stop smoking he'd die - soon. This guy would not stop, got pneumonia and has been on a vent. for the last few weeks @ about 7,000-10,000 grand a day. He's 52 and probably leaving two kids and a wife behind. Selfish habit indeed.
I'm sick and bloody tired of paying for the constant harrassment of [non]smokers.
Kind of like I'm tired of paying for stupid behavior.
It can be very effective on mold and mildew.
And I now fully understand your tag line ;-)
Increased with parallel smoking trends????? You're kidding, aren't you????
Smoking rates have been decreasing for years.
Care to explain the "parallel"......or the one about decreases in exposure to SHS for children yet a skyrocketing rate of asthma.........??? Probably not.
Look, it is obvious you do not like cigarette smoking and do not like to be around those that do, that's fine. However, imposing your own personal preferences upon those around you at gun point (use of government control) is not exactly the way to go about it
Links to the variety of studies, please.
No I haven't, but I'm willing to try anything at this point. Is there any product that is TSP on the market with a name?
My biggest problem has been that I can't always find it, even though I know it is around. Now that the weatherhas broken we're going to paint the outside of the house and I did buy stuff to add to the paint that supposedly prevents mold.
Some people will never get it, though.
I've had good luck with when I lived on Cape Cod, aka Mold Central.
Kidding? No. The increase in lung cancer, specifically brochiogenic carcinoma, in women has paralleled the increase in smoking in the same cohort.
or the one about decreases in exposure to SHS for children yet a skyrocketing rate of asthma.........???
Asthma is more related to an over active immune system, rather than smoking, kids with pets have lower incidence of asthma, but that's beside the point here, which is paying for smoking related healthcare. SHS probably diffuses enough in the air to be little more than an anoyance, excepting places where everyone is smoking (ie. bars).
Look, it is obvious you do not like cigarette smoking and do not like to be around those that do, that's fine. However, imposing your own personal preferences upon those around you at gun point (use of government control) is not exactly the way to go about it
Who's pointing a gun? Not me. Smoke! Just don't ask me to pay for your healthcare. We all make choices and some of our choices have consequences - can't have your cake and eat it to - you can, however, enjoy your cigs, I'm not trying to stop you.
Gabz has repeatedly stated that she has private medical insurance and always has.
You repeatedly imply that she's asking you to pay for her healthcare.
Why do you do that?
"People who are unwilling to succumb to what the late Petr Skrabanek (a renegade Czech medic) described as 'Coercive Healthism' - those among us with 'bad habits' - are the new outcasts in this increasingly fearful and intolerant world. It is, in the words of the East London GP Michael Fitzpatrick, the Tyranny of Health which now surrounds us.
Michael Fitzpatrick's recent book called The Tyranny of Health: doctors and the regulation of lifestyle is one which I strongly urge everybody to read. He works in Hackney and is a man who is in daily contact with the sick, and sometimes with the dying. Increasingly, he is also in daily contact with the 'worried well', people who have been driven to fear the very world they live in by unfounded scares and inappropriate health promotion. And now he regularly encounters people who blame themselves for their own illnesses - those who have been persuaded that they are sick only because they have failed to lead the lifestyles which what he sees as an increasingly authoritarian government has prescribed for them.
His simple message is: "Doctors should stop trying to moralise their patients and concentrate on treating them", and he enlists the help of the microbiologist Renee Dubos to reinforce his point. Dubos commented in his book The Mirage of Health, written way back in 1960:
In the words of a wise physician, it is part of the doctor's function to make it possible for his patients to go on doing the pleasant things that are bad for them - smoking too much, eating and drinking too much - without killing themselves any sooner than is necessary.
And that, for Fitzpatrick, is the real job of the General Practitioner - not meeting 'lifestyle education' targets set by the state. Nor refusing to treat those who have allegedly brought ill health upon themselves. His job is that of the doctor, not the priest."
And
"A similar sentiment was also, and perhaps most famously, expressed by Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. In his 'autobiography' he commented:
"There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokeable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get out of it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry."
It was Mark Twain, of course, who also urged us to be careful when reading health books. "You might", he warned "die of a misprint."
A hundred years on and we seem to have ignored all of these rather wise and liberal views, despite the clear evidence available to us of healthism's negative consequences at both individual and societal levels.
If you ask me whether or not I smoke during the interview process, you will answer to the EEOC if I am not hired. If you ask me whether or not I drink, you will answer to the EEOC if I am not hired. If you ask me about my sexual preferences during the interview you will answer to the EEOC if I am not hired.
Bottom line is, you better be asking me questions relevant to the job I am interviewing for or else you are in for trouble.
A savy employer will not even offer a job to a prospective applicant until such applicant has taken and passed a drug screening test. Unfortunately for the employer, such test can not determine whether or not the applicant has a drinking problem.
Here are the steps a successfull HR mgr. will take in an effort to hire a quality individual:
1. Recruit applicants
2. Review resume's and schedule interviews accordingly.
3. Contact potential interviewees and schedule interview with HR Dept.
4. Select prospective candidates and schedule followup interview with department manager.
5. Department manager makes decision on who to further interview for the job.
6. Schedule physical which also includes drug screening for all potential applicants.
7. Applicants who pass physical and drug screening are again scheduled for further interview. Those who fail the physical are sent a letter telling them simply that they fail to meet the requirements of the job.
8. Those who passed physical are once again interviewed.
9. The candidate who has been chosen for the job is then given the salary information and offered the job. Should he turn down the offer then the next available candidate is made the same offer.
These steps are necessary in order to alleviate the possibility of an employer being charged with unnecessary discrimination....
The successfull key to the entire process is for the employer to withhold any offer of such job to the applicant until he/she has been determined to be a successful candidate............
I'm not even going to tear into your ignorant rant but rather I'm going to give you the situation of where I work.
I report for work at 7:30 a.m. and take a 4 1/2 minute smoke break at approximately 9:30 a.m. and another at 11:05 a.m.. As for the afternoon, I take another 4 1/2 minute break at 2:30 p.m.
A gal I work next to reports for work the same time as I, 7:30 a.m., chats with Kristen for approximately 20 minutes, calls her husband and chats for another 15 or so minutes, goes over to another girl's cube and chats for a number of minutes, goes back to her cube and calls up her daycare sitter and checks up on her new baby, then calls her mom and chats for uncounted minutes.
Once our call center phone lines go live at 9:00 a.m., she may or may not be available!
This crap goes on every single darn day with her and several other people I work with.
And so I am the pariah here simply because I spend 10 minutes outside of my cubicle every morning and another 5 or so minutes in the afternoon enjoying my smokes!
Don't hand me your crap that smokers are non-productive because of all the smokers I have ever had the enjoyment of working with they have been more productive than any nico-nazi I have ever come in contact with!!!
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