Companies won't hire smokers to cut healthcare costs (quit smoking or lose your job)

[The Straight Story]

Companies won't hire smokers to cut healthcare costs

KETTERING — Reynolds and Reynolds Co. employees who don’t quit using tobacco products by Jan. 1 could lose their jobs.

The Kettering-based company is among the first in the region — if not the first — to insist not only on a nicotine-free workplace, but also on a nicotine-free work force in states like Ohio where smokers aren’t legally protected.

“You can be terminated for using tobacco if the situation warrants,” spokesman Tom Schwartz said. Reynolds, which told workers of the policy change in July to give tobacco users time to quit, expects the policy will affect fewer than 5 percent of its more than 4,000 employees, of whom about 1,300 are local.

The company has not hired tobacco users for nearly four years, and hasn’t received employee pushback on the new policy, Schwartz said. There is no Ohio law prohibiting an employer from basing employment decisions on whether an employee uses tobacco, according to the Tobacco Public Policy Center at Capital University Law School.

Requiring a tobacco-free work force is just one of several steps employers are taking to hold down spiraling health-care costs.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/companies-wont-hire-smokers-to-cut-healthcare-costs-1002709.html

Next up - lose weight or lose your job. Later, if having sex outside of marriage is seen to increase your risk of disease - well then you are screwed...but not in the way you wanted to be ;)

[bbinacan]

1. Welcome to HCR. n/t

[Skittles]

2. what's next?

fat people? people with diabetes? people with heartburn?

[RagAss]

3. Next is white Christians only !....

and if you can't see that coming....get some glasses.

[spinbaby]

6. People over 50

It's already widely done.

[denem]

4. Healthcare costs = Insurance Costs

We won't raise the premiums on you as much as the others heh. Suppose nobody smokes- we will stop pushing premiums so high. Yeah right.

[mikehiggins]

5. Are you really surprised at this? n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Fortunoff's woud not hire smokers 25 years ago.

I knew someone back in '85 who could not get a job there because she smoked...

[applegrove]

8. I was a smoker for 27 years and I certainly got bronchitis and had to miss work

at least twice a winter. I'm not saying your job should tell you what you can or cannot do. I'm just saying that smokers do get sick more often than non smokers. Since I've been quit I not have taken a week off work and it has been two years.

[Skittles]

12. people who don't exercise tend to be less healthy too

let's stop them from being hired!!!

[pacalo]

15. I was one of the luckier smokers who never missed work, but there are other

vices, such as drinking, with health problems associated with them. I'll bet some of those who think it's best to ban smokers from having jobs in their companies drink alcohol, & lots of it. I think it's stepping over the line. Banning smoking at work is fine with me, but what I do at home is none of their business.

Next will be keeping jobs away from people who get speeding tickets or having a genetic predisposition for cancer or other serious diseases?

[applegrove]

16. Oh I agree I don't think smokers should be banned from some jobs. I was just saying that it isn't

a healthy lifestyle and probably does cost the business more $$$ to hire someone who will be off sick 2 weeks a year.

[pacalo]

23. And you're right. There are just a lot of other things that they could go after, too

& that's scary!

:hi:

[Kalyke]

42. I get sicker when I quit smoking.

I have far more allergies and stomach aches when I quit.

:shrug:

[ZombieHorde]

9. Yikes! You are probably right about those who are overweight being next.

Which groups have the most health care costs? These groups need to think about this.

[virgogal]

10. Coming soon to an employer near you.

[Brickbat]

11. Nope, we don't need unions at all.

:eyes:

[pacalo]

13. I totally agree with your comment below the article. I wonder what vices

those who make these decisions have. This steps over the line.

[texastoast]

14. We knew we were headed here since the 1980s

You are right. Next it will be weight. Then you'll be fired if you don't work out. Then it will be that you have to have blood tests to show that all your vitals are within normal range.

Ah, the corporatists and their profit margins.

[Better Today]

17. Our local sheriff's office did this five years ago, and even so

according to those working there, their health insurance costs are rising just the same as everyone else's

[jeffrey_X]

18. Good.

eom

[The Straight Story]

20. And it will be good when they test for abortions, weight, genetic problems, etc as well

I am sure you will be on board all the same.

[BlueCheese]

19. Isn't that why companies sponsor wellness programs?

Free blood pressure testing, cholesterol testing, weight-loss programs, etc.

Maybe it's partly to raise morale, but I imagine a big part of the motivation is to have healthier employees, who cost less to insure.

[elocs]

21. It may not be just health related but also productivity related.

I once worked at a screen printing company where maybe twice as many workers smoked compared to the average. Working 2nd or 3rd shift you didn't get too far into the shift when it became obvious that the smokers were thinking as much about their next cigarette and when they could smoke it as they were the work they were doing. There was the sneaking out to grab a smoke before a scheduled break or lunchtime. They certainly did not appear to be as productive as the nonsmokers.

[flvegan]

22. Welcome to yet another slippery slope.

I don't smoke, never have. This is a bad idea. Yes, maybe a smoker has a statistical possibility to be an insurance liability in the long term. Know who else could be? Someone who drinks. Someone that eats meat. Someone that goes to the gym every day. Someone that drives a really fast car...really fast. Someone genetically predisposed to have hbp, diabetes, cancer...I could go on.

[TheKentuckian]

24. Stand up for workers to have self determination instead of letting someone with a different

lifestyle or habits than you get picked off to pad some rich fucker's pocket in the vain hope of lowering cost or getting a leg up.

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Well workers should contact the NLBR

Just don't expect them too.

[eridani]

26. That ought to be illegal

Not allowing smoking in company buildings is one thing--this is quite something else.

[ibegurpard]

27. hey let's make everyone submit to monthly STD tests

promiscuity puts you at risk for potentially costly diseases...

[woo me with science]

28. Another reason not to have health insurance tied to employment. nt

[opihimoimoi]

29. Drug Testing for Nicotine Coming Soon....Testing Poz 3x will get you Fired

[Occulus]

30. If an employer wants to control what legal activities employees engage in while off the clock

the employer should be willing to pay them 24/7, including overtime.

If they're not willing to pay employees during the time they're not actually working, they have no right to control the employees' engagement in any particular legal activity.

And I expect a lawsuit on those exact grounds over this at some point. Once it is established that an employer cannot control an employee's legal off-the-clock activities without paying them to abide by corporate policy when not on corporate time and not on corporate property, the practice will end.

I cannot believe we have fallen this far. What's next, eating fast food? Purchasing or using a competitor's product?

Living in the "wrong" neighborhood?

How far will this go before we say "too far"?

[TheKentuckian]

31. Apparently never. People will fall for the easy fall guy and the divide and conquer tactics every

time. Especially, if they think it'll save them a buck though they'll never see it.

[Le Taz Hot]

33. Now THAT is a great point!

"If an employer wants to control what legal activities employees engage in while off the clock the employer should be willing to pay them 24/7, including overtime."

[Obamanaut]

36. If the legal activity causes an injury that the employer-paid medical insurance

must pay, or that adversely affects the employees work ability following such an activity, the employer should have a say.

Isn't it true that some professional sports team franchises prohibit some legal activities off the field by the highly paid athletes?

The military requires motorcyclists to wear helmets, even in states with no helmet law. Is that also wrong?

[myrna minx]

38. What about if your employers soon forbid rock climbing,

water skiing, sky diving, camping, trans-fats, fast food/pizza or how many beers you have on the weekend? In my opinion, this is where we're heading. I'm a former smoker of 22-23 years, so I see both sides of this (I also missed work for what I now realize were smoking related issues), but I'm uncomfortable with an employer having 24/7 control over an employee's lifestyle.

[Obamanaut]

41. If the employer-paid insurance must cover rock climbing injury, then

the employer should have a say.

If the employee pays for all the insurance cost, then the employer should have no say.

If the benefit package includes accrual of sick time, then the rock climber should go out and have fun, have his insurance pay the medical bills, sit on the couch until the injuries heal UNTIL the sick time and built up vacation time runs out, then he's on his own.

[ibegurpard]

40. One more reason health insurance tied to employment is a bad idea

[Mimosa]

44. Good point! n/t

[Vinca]

32. So, I'll be the first to say it. What we need is . . .

death camps. We'll get rid of the smokers, the druggies, the booze hounds, the sick people, the fat people and the old people and we'll do it in one fell swoop. Problem solved.:sarcasm: (Sarcasm smilie added for the benefit of lurking Republicans.)

[NNN0LHI]

34. I betcha going Discount Bungee Jumping is still alright though

:shrug:

[area51]

35. "... to hold down spiraling health-care costs."

And of course, they avoid the 900 lb. gorilla in the room, that if they pushed congress for single-payer, they'd save a shitload of money and not need to play these bullshit games with employees. Nor have they noticed that no matter what activities they proscribe, the unregulated insurance fees will continue to increase.


Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people.

Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America

[lostnfound]

37. This non-smoker thinks the policy is absolutely despicable.

The American obsession with 'you're responsible for your own choices' and 'live with the consequences' and other such nonsense has turned this country into a country that has no sense of respect or dignity. Smoking is a vile habit, but giving carte blanche to the corporate bullying of individuals is even more vile.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. Article is wrong, they are are from the first

[handmade34]

43. Healthcare should NEVER

be tied to employment! ...and, if workers must take responsibility for behavior, then Corporations/Businesses must be held responsibility for the harm they do to society/the environment