Exactly!!! And what about their "fatties" and their alcoholics??????? Why just smokers???
Posted on 12/18/2005 3:13:08 AM PST by SheLion
JOHNSON CITY - No ifs, ands or "butts" - smokers looking for employment are no longer welcome at Crown Laboratories.
It's bold, but that's the new policy at the Johnson City-based company that manufactures Blue Lizard sunscreen. Not only that, but current employees who smoke, dip or chew have 12 months to give up the habit or they will have to start paying 100 percent of the premium for their health insurance.
"This is the way that health care is going to go in the future," said Jeff Bedard, the company's chief executive officer. "They're going to penalize people who choose to not take care of their own health."
Smokers at his company have been offered access to a smoking cessation program run by a local physician group. The program is available at no charge to the employee, and it includes individual counseling plus supplies like nicotine patches, gum and inhalers.
By June, employees who are still using tobacco will be required to pay half of the monthly premium for their health insurance, and those who haven't quit by January 2007 must pay the entire premium if they want to continue participating in the company's insurance plan. Tobacco-free employees are not required to pay any of the premium.
Bedard said the tobacco policy is part of a broader effort to control insurance costs for the business.
"The costs associated with health care are just going astronomically through the roof," he said. "We've experienced three years in a row where we've had 30 percent health care increases."
The company currently employs 46 people, six of whom smoke.
"The cost of insurance is $100 higher per employee, per month, due to having to cover smokers," Bedard said.
Bedard is hoping to reduce costs not only by eliminating smokers from the insurance plan, but also by improving the overall health status of the rest of his employees through a companywide wellness program managed by Wilson Pharmacy and Home Health. The program is mandatory for everyone on Crown's insurance policy, and it is designed to motivate employees to adopt good health habits like exercising and eating a balanced diet.
After an initial evaluation, each employee is assigned a number between one and 24 that represents his or her overall health status. Employees are evaluated twice a year and monitored for factors like blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar. That same blood test will also check for nicotine levels, Bedard said, which is one way the company will enforce its smoking policy.
For every three-point increase in an employee's wellness number, he or she will be granted a paid day off. Then at the end of the year, employees who have improved their overall health status will receive a $500 American Express gift card.
"The reason I did the time off tied to the wellness is that if the employees aren't here in the plant, I want them to be able to enjoy the time off and not lay in bed sick. If they take a day off, I'd rather have them do something fun and recharge their batteries than take a day off because they're sick," said Bedard.
Employees who start out near the top of the wellness scale aren't penalized if they don't have any room for improvement, he added. As long as they stay above 20, they'll continue to reap the rewards.
Bedard said similar wellness programs across the country have been shown to provide an attractive return on investment for the companies that implement them.
"What most of the wellness programs are showing is that for every dollar you invest, you typically will get back anywhere between $1.50 to $4. That's in productivity in the workplace, the number of sick days that the employees don't have to take, and then the reduced cost of health care," he said.
Bedard said he believes the new policy - especially the crackdown on smoking - is also more in line with the image his company wants to project.
"We're a pharmaceutical company, and we're a health care company. We provide products that keep people from getting skin cancers," he said. "It's hard for us as a company to go out and promote to the world that you shouldn't go to tanning beds, and you shouldn't lay out in the sun, and you need to protect your body when I've got people hanging out in the back smoking area lighting up cigarettes.
"It's a real moral dilemma. So we made the decision that if we're going to be a health care company, we need to be a healthy company and we need to promote wellness."
Of course, not everyone is happy about the new program.
"There have been a few people who have been concerned about us prying into their personal lives," Bedard said. "(They think), ‘Is it really your business if I smoke at home, or is it really your business if I smoke, period?' And my answer is, it's not my business unless it costs the company money. As CEO of this company, I've got to be a good steward of its financial health. And when the financial health of this company is impacted by a habit that I don't see as necessary to anyone's life, then yes, I do have that right."
Robert Broyles, a building maintenance assistant at Crown and one of the six smokers on staff, said some of his co-workers have told him they would rather quit their jobs than quit smoking.
"I've heard a lot of negative comments about it," he said. "I think it's a good idea to motivate people to get healthier, but it's getting into their privacy too. There's a good side and a bad side."
But with a policy so strict and all-encompassing, Bedard said he is prepared for some resistance.
"I've told them, ‘Look, this is the policy. If I lose you as an employee, I'm sorry that you've made the choice to smoke versus work here. But that's the policy that we've got to live with.' So far, no one's quit, but then of course it doesn't go into full effect until January 1st," he said.
Broyles, who officially quit smoking at 9 a.m. Friday, is one employee who plans to stick with his job and nix the tobacco. He spent his first smoke-free day with a Nicotrol Inhaler in his shirt pocket instead of a pack of cigarettes.
"I think it's an invasion of privacy, but it will help people in the long run. It will help me if I can do it. I'm going to give it the old college try," he said. "I've been wanting to quit for a few years, but I never had this sort of motivation. I thought, ‘This is it - I'm finally going to do it.'"
"Your body belongs to the state" ping!
How about the same policy for those who are confirmed to have the AIDS virus?
I'd love to see this in black and white. Until then, they are just spewing lies about employees who like to smoke!
We all live to serve the great machine.
I guess it's ok for the employee's to be an alcoholic or obese or even have aids!
The logical next step is diet control. Don't get caught at MacDonald's.
Exactly!!! And what about their "fatties" and their alcoholics??????? Why just smokers???
Future employees.................heh!
Your pregnancy is not allowed under company policy, you will have to terminate it or look for work elsewhere.
Strange,when I quit three years ago my insurance rates did`nt drop.
Really,does anyone believe if all of America was to quit smoking today that insurance would be cheaper.
The press releases are probably already written as to how obesity or a multitude of other factors are keeping rates high.
Without thinking too hard we can see where this is going. Now its smoking, Then will come Motorcycle riders, people who dont wear seat belts. Horse back riders, homosexuals,people who are obese,diabetics.
This is getting to be a regular things now , more and more companies are getting away with it. Its only going to get worse.
Your pregnancy is not allowed under company policy, you will have to terminate it or look for work elsewhere.
You are SO right!!!! When a woman is PG, the company gives her 6 weeks of maternity leave. But nothing is said about THAT, is there! Look how much work she is missing!
I cannot see that an employee has any bitch about being fired for any or no reason, nor to object to wage reductions or having his or her "health insurance" canceled for any or no reason.
An employer has as much right to terminate a relationship with an employee as an employee has the right to terminate his relationship with an employer. Every implied employment contract on the employer's part is "I pay what I choose any you obey willingly. You are totally free to leave if you don't want this." On the employee's part the contract is "I agree to these terms."
I am pulling your leg. The joke is on you if you get mad.
I know how smokers feel about this sort of thing. Am one myself although twenty five years without a cigarette. Once a smoker, always a smoker.
Anyway, I am right.
They need to impose the same ultimatum upon employees who drink alcohol. A liver is a terrible thing to waste.
The "FAT POLICE" will be coming next, along with a cadre of Class-Action Lawyers, as usual.
More wealth redistribution to follow....
I think the unwashed masses are still smugly congratulating themselves for not being smokers. It's going to take them awhile before they realize that they are next.
For "any" read "and".
Another thing, the business owing an employee anything originates in the days when servants were bound to their masters. That is, they could not walk away. Serfs and slaves. A person is not free unless he himself is his own property, that is, he owns himself, and to own property means you can sell it.
By the way the legal codes in the USA were changed in the early days and wherever "servant" was in the text "employee" was substituted. Ditto for "master" and "employer".
You are only right in your own mind. LOL
just kidding
Look Mr. Jones, I know you like you job here at XYZ Industries, but your wife who has been in the hospital on a ventilator for 6 monthes is costing our insurance company a lot of money. You need to make the right decision or find another job.
Next it'll be Oreos.
I see a law suit in their future.
It only belongs to the company because you willingly accepted their health insurance. Get your own policy (like you do for car insurance) and you can smoke all you want.
If the company wants employees to pick up the difference in cost (smoker rate vs non smoker rate) fine. But controlling someone's right to consume a legal product privately should be off limits.
"You are only right in your own mind. LOL"
Hey, all right!
Myself, I find quite a few people that suffer the affliction to which you refer. Too bad people "except me and thee and sometimes I think thou art" are irrational creatures.
That "thou art" saying is really, REALLY old! That "thou" business is really in it.
Anyway, good luck with the smoking. Me, I gave up every last bad habit years ago, or pretty nearly, with the gentle urging of my good wife! I KNOW when I am beat! (Masculine humor there, sorry, I know it isn't funny! Haw!)
I hear Maine is about overrun with flat landers. I recollect a long ago trip, about 1954, a beautiful place. Hope it still is. The fishing villages were wonderful in those days.
Wife just got up, see you later! Been fun!
The entire problem here is that your employer should not be providing health insurance for you in the first place! If they provided car insurance, they could dictate what car you could own.
The reason they force smokers to pay 100% is because the system is designed to pool everyone from a single company into a "pool"...hence risk is shared.
Employer-provided health insurance is just one step away from gov't-provided health insurance. Let employees get their own insurance and watch cost control start to take place.
If everyone in America quit smoking, government would go out of business. It would almost be worth it!
"I've told them, ‘Look, this is the policy. If I lose you as an employee, I'm sorry that you've made the choice to smoke versus work here. ...'"
These are conflicting accounts. According to the first, employees must choose between smoking and paid health care. According to the second, the choice is between smoking and their jobs.
"I'd love to see this in black and white. Until then, they are just spewing lies about employees who like to smoke!"
I don't know if it applies to group insurance. But it does for individual coverage.
I have individual insurance and any time I get quotes, they ask me if I smoke. The rate for a smoker is 25% higher than a non smoker.
Glad I don't smoke.
I told everyone when Weyco started this crap that it was going to spread. And they only single out smokers.
You're correct, as has been proven by the latest trend.
Smokers are the beta version. They've been so thoroughly vilified that it's OK to use them as the first step.
It'll eventually creep into a modern-day version of John Ford monitoring his employees' private lives to make sure they're acceptable members of the hive.
And his movies weren't that good, either.
Yet all the smokers on here whine like little babies when they are punished for their own actions.
Look, I know smokers have been targeted by the PC police lately and that fatties and drinkers are next. The solution is rugged individualism, not group health care or anything else.
Obesity is next - just the motivation I need to get skinny again.
Er, I meant Henry Ford.
And his movies weren't that good, either.
The argument is that smokers are being singled out.
Considering all the demonization that smokers have been subjected to in recent history, I'd say that rugged individualism is one of their traits.
I would too---If I had ever heard of it before.
Of course you're right about the way employee rates are calculated. If ins companies defined a premium cost for obesity or alcohol, companies would have a quantifiable motivation to further define the behavours of their employees. Smoking was easy because our nanny govt placed the blame for smokers health squarely on the tobacco industry with their deep pockets. Then the laws came. After that, one simply followed suit by limiting smoking for whatever reason suited them, in this case, financial.
The process has been defined. It's just a matter of time before the vice of your choice is labelled, litigated, legislated and used against you in your workplace.
I wonder if they factor in that non-smokers will draw a pension longer.
Actually they need to have the same policy for those who practice behaviors that lead to HIV infection.
The employers who implement this policy won't get the savings they are looking for...the problems in the health insurance industry go way beyond smokers!
I am retired but my former employeer pays for my insurance, They have recently been sending out nosy type surveys asking questions about the weight, height,dietary questions, smoker or not of me and my family members. It's not hard to see where this is going.
I am wondering how they will ever enforce a no smoking policy, especially among retirees. Will they come to my house for a blood or urine sample? Will they also come to check to see if we are having pork chops for dinner? Are we eating too many doughnuts?
I also agree with the other posters about AIDS. Can you imagine the uproar from the queer community if employeers ever asked them a single question about their very high risk behaviour or even hinted that they shouldn't engage in it?
Smokers still comprise a larger per cent of the population than queers but I guess we are just not shrill enough.
You are only capable of being singled out because you gave up control of your health insurance to another entity.
I believe I agreed with you on this point in a previous post.
This lifestyle policing by employers is a new phenomenon, and is aimed solely at smokers (for the time being.)
It could be argued that new rules were written after the game had begun and only one class of employees has been designated as violators.
It will eventually seep into the lives of non-smoking employees, of course.
Not depending on an employer to provide health insurance is the obvious solution.
Not completely true. Employers were screening drug users before the crackdown on smokers. Mandatory physicals and family histories were required for health insurance.
Look, we both agree that smokers are being targeted lately. It is not the fault of companies....they are protecting profitability and competitiveness by seeking the lowest costs possible.
Blame belongs on a society that has abrogated their health insurance to these large entities. Blame belongs on a society that uses lawsuits against manufacturers of a lawful product as an excuse for personal responsibility. Blame belongs on a society that jumps on the bandwagon against smoking or fatty foods or alcohol or whatever. (remember prohibition?)
Blame belongs on each of us. This is another area where conservatives need to start educating the public.
I wish all smokers could just stop buying for "6" months. The government would be in a TAIL spin!!!!
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