Costs Make Employers See Smokers as a Drag

La Times ^ | Fri Jan 28, 7:55 AM ET | By Daniel Costello Times Staff Writer

[Eurotwit]

Employers have recently tried every carrot they can think of — including cash incentives and iPods — to persuade employees to quit smoking. Now some are trying the stick.

Pointing to rising health costs and the oversized proportion of insurance claims attributed to smokers, some employers in California and around the country are refusing to hire applicants who smoke and, sometimes, firing employees who refuse to quit.

"Employers are realizing the majority of health costs are spent on a small minority of workers," says Bill Whitmer, chief executive of the Health Enhancement Research Organization, an employer and healthcare coalition in Birmingham, Ala.

[Eurotwit]

A friend of mine hires only young family people with a mortage. He's got a thing about it. Reckons they are more responsible and motivated.

[TheForceOfOne]

No ACLU?, No Gay uprising? Oh, they're only after smokers. Well, you wait an see how this boils down when it crosses the path of the liberal agenda and the MSM. The 24/7 new casts will scream bigots! and racists! and homophobes! etc.. and demand action now! Just because the first domino doesn't land on you it doesn't mean the one a little farther down the line isn't waiting to smash you. Rolling through the popular bias list such as smoking, over eating, and drinking will come first, then motorcycle riding, skydiving, amusement park rides, until they get to the liberal brick wall or groups considered protected then the court battles will begin but in the mean time who gives a sh@t about the working class, or white males, we can do anything we want to them right? total BS.

[bikepacker67]

Caption: "Our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler drinks no alcohol and does not smoke.... His performance at work is incredible." (From Auf der Wacht 1937:18)

[1Old Pro]

A friend of mine hires only young family people with a mortage. He's got a thing about it. Reckons they are more responsible and motivated.

He should hire salesmen with $200/day coke habits, they are motivated to make sales too.

[Die_Hard Conservative Lady]

#8

Yea, but what about the time spent outside smoking? That is time lost to an employer. We ahve that problem here where I work....

[Eurotwit]

Trinken keinen alkohol und raucht auch nicht.

Its kinda funny and sad. Roosevelt and Churchill could not obtain employment at Weyco, but the Fuhrer could.

Oh well.....

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

I guess I don't understand the American health system good enough. In Norway, we off course have a state provided health care system.

Actually, a study was done here in the US, that smokers actually save the government money when it comes to Social Security payouts and Medicare (socialized medical care for the elderly). They die sooner.

[jec41]

I agree but would like to add politics as a health risk to deny employment. Think of all the Kerry supporters that suffered mental depression after the election and used their health care for treatment. I need to see some cost estimates. If they are too high I see no alternative but to fire all democrats.

[Eurotwit]

A similar study was done in the Tcheck republic, with the same result.

I always joke that the way so save social security is to hand out free cartons of marlboro's to highschool kids.

[Die_Hard Conservative Lady]

#8

Yea, but what about the time spent outside smoking? That is time lost to an employer. We ahve that problem here where I work....

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

And this crap about smokers taking more time off...

They sure take a lot of "breaks". And that adds up to significant time.

[untrained skeptic]

It employers place too many restrictions on their employees they will be unable to hire and retain good employees.

Every time the government steps in with good intentions to protect workers it just seems to end up in a mess with people stretching the law beyond it's intent and suing employers. That makes it more expensive to do business and harms our economy, which eventually harms us.

I definitely don't like all of the policies of the company I work for, but I recognize that I can always look for another job if I feel they are too restrictive.

Bad company policies can put some people with limited employment options in a bad situation, but so can bad government regulations. If you let the government address this issue, the bill that finally gets passed after all the special interest groups pull the politicians in different directions and they reach a compromise won't be exactly what you were hoping for. In the end it will mostly be a windfall for trial lawyers.

However, if you want to really get your blood boiling about invasion of privacy, imagine if they take this just a little step farther.

Just imagine showing up for processing in at your new job and being told that you needed to set up an appointment to have blood tests for both you and your wife to test for nicotine? That is if they're going to be covered on your family medical plan.

That didn't bother you? How about if they want to test your teenage kids for nicotine, alcohol, and drugs while they're at it?

I'm not saying there won't be a company that tries to do that. There probably will be. I just know I wouldn't want to work there even if they had to stop this policy due to government intervention. Bad employers to work for still find a way to be bad employers despite government oversight.

It usually seems like the bad employers are good at creating rules that prevent them from being sued, while it's the better employers that act in good faith but accidentally do something that can be inferred as violating the law that end up in court dealing with a disgruntled employee who's retirement plan is to sue someone for lots of money.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Yea, but what about the time spent outside smoking? That is time lost to an employer. We ahve that problem here where I work....

And the mess they leave on the lawns and at the entranceways, ashtrays not withstanding.

[Xenalyte]

How about just saying ALL employees are not allowed to have sex, EVER.

Hire a bunch of married guys. They don't expect to get it ever again.

[Eurotwit]

I don't know what kind of work you people do.

I guess if you work at an assembly line there is a linear relationship between time at desk and productivity.

In many jobs that is absolutely not the case.

[sergeantdave]

Sir, you are speaking common sense. That is not allowed in bureaucratic, nanny, Big Brother America.

Bad! Bad! Bad!

[-YYZ-]

And yet I've personally known several people who died of lung cancer, and all of them were smokers. I don't personally have a lot of doubt about the correlation between smoking and 2 or 3 particular cancers (lung, larynx, mouth), although I don't know if it's quite as bad as the lung and cancer societies make it out to be. I say that as a smoker, and having watched 2 people close to me personally die of lung cancer quite unpleasantly (are any cancer deaths anything but?), it's given me a fair kick in the pants to try and quit this habit.

[trubluolyguy]

Next are going to be the obese employees.

[-YYZ-]

"Yea, but what about the time spent outside smoking? That is time lost to an employer. We ahve that problem here where I work...."

Set clear break policies. I never spent any more time outside smoking than my coffee-drinking co-workers did hanging around in the kitchen area making and drinking coffee and shooting the bull.

[sandbar]

>The solution is don't expect or accept a "benefit" from an >employer without expecting strings

Why is everyone acting like this is some kind of charity that employers are GIVING employees? This is not a BENEFIT. This is PART OF COMPENSATION that works for all. The employee gets the benefit of a group rate, the employer gets a better/happier employee with what he would compensate with salary for the employee to be able to AFFORD health insurance if they were to pay it on their own.

This is not a gift by employers. This is compensation and is no different than an employer saying "Here, you have a bonus, but you can't spend it on this, this, or this".