how about targeting fat fucks instead? fat fucks cost more than smokers do

[CipherLock]

Then according to the BMI most of us would be denied care.

 

[The Shadow]

depends on what it is

...not for legal activities such as smoking

 

[milo hobgoblin]

This is a tough one.. one on hand why should a company have to pay for the poor lifestyle choices of its employees???

on the otherhand we live in a society where smking is "still" legal..

The original poster has a good point though.. wouldnt it be just as easy for them to fire obese people citing the same reasons (high healthcare costs).. Obese people die much faster and younger than smokers.

But its not illegal to eat as much as you want either.

 

[rnch]

....Obese people die much faster and younger than smokers.....

kinda hard to believer that.......

 

[bluepeter]

This is a tough one.. one on hand why should a company have to pay for the poor lifestyle choices of its employees???

on the otherhand we live in a society where smking is "still" legal..

The original poster has a good point though.. wouldnt it be just as easy for them to fire obese people citing the same reasons (high healthcare costs).. Obese people die much faster and younger than smokers.

But its not illegal to eat as much as you want either.

Good point. I think that's where this company is clearly in the wrong. You cannot fire someone for being a smoker because that is a poor lifestyle choice. You would have to fire everybody that lived an unhealthy lifestyle.

 

[Buddy_Christ]

Here in DE, we are an "employment at will" state -- so you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all -- as long as it's not discrimination. But employers can do almost whatever they want.

fire all the smokers and i'm sure it could be called discrimination. how are they going to argue that it isn't? "oh, gee, we just happened to pick these 10 people and random and they're all smokers, go figure!"


i say fire all the fat people. guys over 22% bodyfat get a few months to drop the bodyfat. if they don't show significant improvement, FIRE THEM. seroiusly, why not? fat people have to be creating just as many if not more health concerns than smokers. plus they're fat. who wants to look at fat people?

 

[mrplunkey]

Good point. I think that's where this company is clearly in the wrong. You cannot fire someone for being a smoker because that is a poor lifestyle choice. You would have to fire everybody that lived an unhealthy lifestyle.

If it's job-related, unfortunately you can. If the employer can link the job to requirement it's quite doable.

- If a hooter's girl blows-up to 450 lbs, she won't be a hooters girl for long
- If a personal trainer employed by a gym starts chain-smoking he's easily firable
- If you become a strict vegatarian and refuse to train your muscles, hence becoming too weak to lift as part of your job, you'll be toast

At higher levels of employment, it gets *really* nasty. I used to work at General Electric as an executive-band (a.k.a. e-band) employee. You could lose your job for basically any activity that detracted from the company's image.

 

[mrplunkey]

i say fire all the fat people. guys over 22% bodyfat get a few months to drop the bodyfat. if they don't show significant improvement, FIRE THEM. seroiusly, why not? fat people have to be creating just as many if not more health concerns than smokers. plus they're fat. who wants to look at fat people?

This is coming. Recent advances in life sciences will make sequencing people's DNA a more routine happening. As we build these archives, we're going to find out that most people are genetic tinderboxes -- we could go up at any time. The other thing we'll find is that obesity is the trigger that turns a lot of these undesirable genes on. Therefore, even if you don't have someone's DNA sequence, it's a safe bet to fire them so all the unexpressed genes don't start coming-out and running-up the health care bill.

 

[bluepeter]

If it's job-related, unfortunately you can. If the employer can link the job to requirement it's quite doable.

- If a hooter's girl blows-up to 450 lbs, she won't be a hooters girl for long
- If a personal trainer employed by a gym starts chain-smoking he's easily firable
- If you become a strict vegatarian and refuse to train your muscles, hence becoming too weak to lift as part of your job, you'll be toast

At higher levels of employment, it gets *really* nasty. I used to work at General Electric as an executive-band (a.k.a. e-band) employee. You could lose your job for basically any activity that detracted from the company's image.

That's scary if you're right. I would think however that it would only be enforceable if the company had such 'company image' language in your employment agreement. If they don't, I can't see them being able to get away with it.

 

[rnch]

fire all the smokers and i'm sure it could be called discrimination. how are they going to argue that it isn't? "oh, gee, we just happened to pick these 10 people and random and they're all smokers, go figure!"


i say fire all the fat people. guys over 22% bodyfat get a few months to drop the bodyfat. if they don't show significant improvement, FIRE THEM. seroiusly, why not? fat people have to be creating just as many if not more health concerns than smokers. plus they're fat. who wants to look at fat people?

hell crak.........if this happened we'd BOTH be unemplyable!! lol