Companies target workers who are fat, smoke
By Kathleen Kingsbury, Reuters
Employers tried the carrot, then a small stick. Now they are turning to bigger cudgels.
For years they encouraged workers to improve their health and productivity with free screenings, discounted gym memberships and gift cards to lose weight. More recently, a small number charged smokers slightly higher premiums to get them to quit.
Results for these plans were lackluster, and healthcare costs continued to soar. So companies are taking advantage of new rules under President Barack Obama’s healthcare overhaul in 2014 to punish smokers and overweight workers.
Some will even force employees to meet weight goals, quit smoking and provide very personal information or pay up to thousands more annually for healthcare. That could disproportionately affect the poor, who are more likely to smoke and can’t afford the higher fees.
Nearly 40 percent of large U.S. companies will use surcharges in 2014, such as higher insurance premiums or deductibles for individuals who do not complete company-set health goals, according to a survey of 892 employers released in September by human resources consultancy Towers Watson and National Business Group on Health, which represents large employers.
That is almost twice as many as the last time they did the survey in 2011, when only 19 percent of companies had such penalties. The number is expected to climb to two-thirds of employers by 2015.
For me, this was an easy one. If you smoke, you do not work for me. No exceptions. Think about it. Every time an employee goes for a smoke (break). That is what it is. A break from work. If you smoke 10 cigarettes per day on the job, you have cost me an hour of your productivity to indulge in your addiction. (5 minutes per cigarette plus time to get where you can smoke) I realize there will be howls of protest from those who say “I only smoke at lunch and on assigned breaks.” So be it, yet from my experience in the construction world that rarely holds true. The obesity problem solves itself. Once you reach a certain point you are unable to do the job anymore. E-cigarettes are not the answer. It is still a useless stupid addiction that there is no reason to start to begin with.
Moral judgments, Cycle. And of course, you have EVERY right to hire whomever you choose. But your claim that ecigs are not the answer because it’s still an addiction proves that it’s not about health, it is a moral judgment.
So, pretty soon fat people and smokers will join the millions of others on the disability dole instead of being allowed to be productive citizens, simply because they are unattractive to some people. If disability is given to drug addicts and alcoholics, there’s no reason not to give it to fat people. And not all fat people are unhealthy, while many thin ones are VERY unhealthy. You can’t judge the book by its cover.
Bigotry is not just about ethnicity, is it?
Correct Dawg.
Bigotry also includes religions.
Like your Islamophobia.
Please, tell us more about tolerance and acceptance.
Dog, it is not about how they look but how much more the companies have to pay in insurance premuim payments because of obisity and smoking. These two things cost alot more in health care than those that do.
I understand the smoking. But tobacco addiction as a health problem if you’re not smoking or chewing (as in using e-cigarettes)evades me. And as to fat, well, you might as well not hire women because one in eight will eventually get breast cancer. And you can’t hire Black people because they are more prone to diabetes and they are the only people to get sicle cell anemia. People who drink sodas rot their teeth and cost more in dental insurance.
Where does it end?
The discrimination never ends no matter what a person believes. Life is full of conterdictions and humans are far from perfect.
It is not bigotry on my part. I state that e-cigs are not the answer because in a recent article in this paper about e-cigs, one of the featured e-cig user still had to leave his work station to go grab a smoke. Same relationship applies. Once again, I am not going to pay someone to indulge in their addiction while I am paying them to preform a service. Who cares about the insurance premium. How many people tell the truth about smoking when filling out insurance forms. If your illness or injury does not pertain to your tobacco use, none is the wiser. Many are willing to take that chance. Ever work on a job site where there are chewers? You change your opinion real fast with all of the spit cups and globs on everything around. No bigotry at all, it is just plain disgusting habit to be around. No moral judgement either. Smoke all ya want, just don’t do it around me
“Mind if I smoke?”
“Mind if I pass gas? I just ate polish sausage and had a few beers”
Optimistically speaking, perhaps the obese and smokers will have better access to health care. I assume we are talking about cigerettes and not other smoked substances? Screens for alcohol consumption? PED’s ? Steriods’s? Birth control use by women?
We all discriminate in our own ways. Many forms of discrimination are legal, and Worldcycle is within his rights to discriminate against smokers. Most people don’t think of the legal ways we all discriminate, so I’ll set you all straight on some. Tattoos : many women would not accept a date offer from a man with large tattoos plastered all over his body. Many men will not date a very fat woman. We don’t watch TV programs that we dislike. Employers hire people that bath and wear nice clothes, not dirty people that use profanity at an interview. These are all ways that we all discriminate; And they are all legal methods of discrimination. What is common to legal discrimination is that the people effected by the discrimination have all made choices that have caused them to be judged. When we discriminate against someone that has made a knowing choice, the discrimination is legal. Most important though, this kind of discrimination is done for the purpose of protection. Worldcycle’s decision is founded on his effort to protect his business from lost productivity. And his decision is not only legal, it is reasonable.
And that, tahoe Pizza Eater, is what I call freedom. Where does it end?