Posted 1/25/2005 05:15:00 PM by Douglas

This is a pretty interesting stance to take, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.

Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours or at home.

Company founder Howard Weyers has said the anti-smoking rule was designed to shield the firm from high health care costs. "I don't want to pay for the results of smoking," he said.

The rule led one employee to quit before the policy was adopted. Four others were fired when they balked at the smoking test.

Personally, I don't want to sit next to a chimney while I'm eating in a restaurant, but if you do and I don't have to smell it, fine. In America, you should be able to do whatever the hell you want to that doesn't affect others, but we know where that's going. Try driving down the street with a BAL of 0.078% without your seat belt on and eating a double cheeseburger. So if I want to smoke a cigarette on my own time, what business is it of my employer?

But on the other hand, the employer is in business to make money, and if he's paying out claims on his company provided insurance plan for smoking related illness, doesn't he have a right to dictate the behavior of his employees? I'd like to say yes to that, because the beauty of America is that if you don't like it, you have the freedom to rise as far as your potential will take you. But this guy goes too far.

It's not mandatory that the employer provide health insurance. They do so to be more competitive in hiring good people that actually want to work for you. So if that's eating too far into his profits, why not scrap the plan he provides altogether? Or even better, scrap the plan, and give a percentage of that contribution to the employees? But singling out one group is incredibly short sighted.

There's another group of people that are incredibly draining to health insurance. They're always going to the doctor, incur astronomical costs to group health plans, and just like smoking, their condition is 100% preventable.

Parents.

People with children are a huge drain on health plans, not to mention lost time at work. If they want to start trimming the fat from his company's health plan, it's time the get serious. But your employeer shouldn't take the liberty to "pick and choose" which conditions they're going to cover with their health insurance. Becasue if you look at this on a dollar per dollar basis, I'd be surprised as hell to find out that people missing work becuase of their children didn't outnumber smoking related illnesses 10 to 1.