Posted on 12/07/2014 8:57:08 PM PST by Ken H
The Pima County Board of Supervisors will vote this month on whether to refuse to hire smokers and put a major pinch on the pocketbooks of those who already work there.
The two-part policy would take effect in July 2015. It prevents the county from hiring smokers and slaps a 30 percent health insurance surcharge on employees who do smoke or use other tobacco products.
-snip-
“It’s not an attempt to punish anybody,” said Human Resources Director Allyn Bulzomi. “It’s an attempt to encourage people to be healthy.”
(Excerpt) Read more at tucson.com ...
If we are going down this road, then to be intellectually honest, we need t refuse to hire homosexuals. Homosexuals have huge health risks compared to.others based on their behaviors. So if we are going to screen out certain less than healthy behaviors, we need to screen for others as well.
Really?
Well, just until you do what they want
People who drink, ride four wheelers, jump out of airplanes, drive fast, are obese. Somebody should sue that tobacco addiction is a preexisting condition and they can’t be refused coverage but need intervention just as with any other condition.
Meanwhile, the jackasses down in the ‘RAT counties like Pima County are trying to get “recreational marijuana” on the 2016 ballot. Not only so they can “tax the hell out of it” but also bring out the “Toking for Hillary” pothead crowd for the 2016 elections.
anybody know how many the county board have adverse activities that will affect insurance rates
Whores working diffferent sides of the same street.
Good idea. Base it solely on actuarial tables, factoring in all risks and concerns, no exceptions.
CC
If you cherry-pick a good bit...you will end up finding a actuarial table which shows non-drinkers typically live longer. Why would I hire anyone who drinks...even socially then?
We could go by actuarial tables, which in retrospect was a dumb idea, or we could tell employees to quit prying into our privacy. Remind them we’re employees and not indentured servants.
CC
CC
But all of this goes back to real actual health costs, which we whine about.
I’ve spent about six weeks of my life in Denmark. I came to notice after a while that you just don’t see ambulances much....anywhere. Rarely do you see traffic accidents. From my pricing of ‘lifestyles’ at the local groceries, I came to be shocked at the general price of a carton of smokes, and even more shocked at the heavily taxed booze they offered. Looking around for drug usage? There just isn’t much to see.
So you look at health insurance costs in Denmark and start to realize the implications of a typical American in a typical town of 40,000 residents...toss in heavy drinking, no control over drugs, and lifestyles out of control....and you end up paying for everyone else’s problems. The question...why should I?
And yet Denmark has cradle to grave socialism. Which equates to much higher taxation and much lower personal income. and don’t delude yourself, although drugs aren’t much of a problem in Denmark, they drink like fishes. About the drinking, though like other european countries there is a much different social dynamic.Drinking is a very natural part of the lifestyle with even small kids being given lightly alcoholic cider or wine at dinners. Drinking to wretched excess is done, but seems to be saved for certain special events or holidays. But the biggest thing to be remembered is that the population is largely homogeneous, and has been for a long time, whereas America is an immigant nation with lots of disparate cultures running into each other all the time. America vs. Denmark is apples and oranges.
CC
Good point. Socialism could work if you know people won’t try to take advantage of the system.
That’s why it would be a disaster here.
Having been around all of Europe....I’ve come to view the drinking habits as a relative factor. No doubt, it’s true in Germany, Austria, Italy and Finland....to a great extent. Maybe there’s numbers for Denmark...but having walked around small towns and villages there for the six-week period...I can’t vouch that Danes drink that much. There’s no doubt about relaxed rules on drinking ages. But you’d expect to see evidence of serious issues (like I see in Germany)...and I just don’t see that in Denmark.
In general, I can say from my three years in Arlington, VA (having left last year)...I came away fairly shocked at the consumption of booze among the teenage crowd, and especially the under-18 crowd. Maybe it’s a generational thing, totally different from my era of growing up in the 1970s...but overall...there’s a lot more consumption now than in the 70’s.
Some forms of discrimination are alive and well. And apparently, since this is even up for consideration, totally legal.
How in the world can they cherry pick what bad habits will exempt somebody from working for them? In the future will you have to be a “perfect” human being in order to get hired somewhere? Will they ban anyone with less than stellar eating habits in the year 2020?
MOTB is certainly coming and I have an idea that it’s not going to be what we thought it was.
All sorts of risky behaviors that could cause both short and long term problems: bicycling in traffic, jogging, skydiving, scuba diving, motorcycles, smoking legal/illegal marijuana - to name a few. Why stop at smoking?
I am now 18 months smoke free.
One of my prime motivations for quitting was the rediculous over taxation of the product.
It feels good to deny them my essence.
You will benefit from a healthier body and better life. That spirit of addiction won’t be dragging you outside to smoke, and your life won’t be built around that pack of cigarettes...YOUR ARE FREE, FREE AT LAST.
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